Syrian refugees 'meeting death' as war stalks them

Bel Trew and Rana Najjar speak to those who have attempted to escape Israeli strikes, only to find themselves on the front line of another conflict, and visit a refugee camp in Lebanon

- Bel Trew, Rana Najjar

When Israeli airstrikes smashed into homes in a nearby village in southern Lebanon, Mariam, a Syrian refugee, packed her bags as quickly as she could and fled back to her home country.

More than a decade after the family had first escaped to Lebanon, they found themselves making the same treacherous journey in reverse. They paid smugglers hundreds of dollars for a gruelling three-day journey, risking arrest to get to Idlib province in the northwest of the country.

But before long, the mother of three found herself on a new front line. Insurgents launched a shock offensive, sweeping through some of northern Syria’s biggest cities and towns, including the one she had just fled to. The forces of president Bashar al-Assad, after a series of extraordinary retreats, have unleashed a punishing bombing campaign on everything within opposition-held territory.

“We escaped Lebanon to our village in Syria, Kansafra. But the war followed us here as well – an airstrike hit next to us a few days ago,” Mariam says from a tent in an area now nominally controlled by anti-Assad forces but under heavy regime bombardment. A neighbouring tent was struck just a few days ago, killing an entire family inside.

“My son wakes up crying at night from fear of the airstrikes. Our biggest worries are the Russian and Syrian planes bombing us. How can the fabric of a tent withstand a missile? The kids are always cold. We are so afraid. There’s no way to go back to Lebanon – the war has completely cut us off,” she adds. “We can’t leave at all. We are stuck.”