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BEIRUT (Reuters) – Abu Ahmad has been a refugee on the Israeli-occupied Golan border for days, fleeing a military offensive that swept southwest Syria.
His family has already moved twice since the assault. end of June, and he is worried that the battles will be made to them again. Now they have nowhere to go.
"We are not even able to sleep more than a few hours, because of the intense fear that the regime is attacking us here," 58-year-old Abu Ahmad told Reuters. The farmer, living with his wife and two children in a field among makeshift tents, is one of the thousands of Syrians who fled to the Golan border.
In three weeks, Syrian government forces seized insurgents in the south with the help of Russian air power. The offensive is expected to turn next to the rebel areas of Quneitra province, near the Golan Heights, which Israel took to Syria during the Middle East war in 1967. The United Nations says the fighting uprooted more than 320,000 people. , in the greatest exodus of the seven-year war. The two Israeli and Jordanian neighbors said that they would not let in the refugees and that they would have distributed aid to Syria's interior.
The Damascus government says it targets only the militants and wants to end their domination. He did not want to return to his village of Kheil, in the province of Deraa, now that he had returned under the rule of the state. But he does not know what his family will do.
"There is no confidence in this regime," said Abu Ahmad, who lost a girl to a shelling and a son to sniper bullets. "We are afraid for our children and for ourselves."
He also believed that they would not be safe on the remaining insurgent territory in northern Syria if there was an agreement evacuation, as this could be the next target of the army. He said that he would not see any inconvenience in escaping to Israel if that were possible.
Israel has refused to accept refugees from the multiform conflict in Syria, a country with which it remains officially in a state of war – although it has taken several thousand Syrians to seek treatment since 2011.
Waves of people in southern Syria have moved in recent days after some rebels in Deraa surrendered in a ceasefire brokered by the Russians. a missile hit near their home and their neighbor's house collapsed. "The warplanes turned the village into a pile of rubble," he added.
First, they went to the border with Jordan, but the authorities refused to let them in. again further west towards the Golan border as government forces move along the Jordanian border and seize it later.
If the army walks towards him, Abu Ahmad says he can not do anything. "It's up to God to decide."
(Written by Ellen Francis, edited by Mark Heinrich)
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