Qusayr refugee - “May God help the people we left behind.”
We at UNHCR gravely fear for the safety people trapped and attempting to flee Qusayr, a besieged town in Syria.
My colleagues in Lebanon spoke to several refugees who had managed to escape there, many arriving in the town of Arsal in the Bekaa valley. They spoke of an extremely difficult journey, made on foot. They said that fighters were targeting people as they attempt to flee. No route out of Qusayr is considered safe, and there are reports that between 700 and 1500 injured civilians are trapped in the city.
They say it is particularly perilous to flee with men, who are at heightened risk of being arrested or killed at checkpoints along the way. None of the refugees was able or willing to identify those who are manning the checkpoints. From one woman, we heard that people in Qusayr are faced with a stark choice: “you leave and risking being killed by a bomb, or you stay and facing a certainty of being killed.”
Her mother told me, “a rocket came through the roof of my kitchen as I was preparing breakfast.” As she said this, she revealed her own raw scar just under her hairline.
Refugees tell us that Qusayr itself is like a ghost town, heavily damaged, and filled with the sound of bombs. People are said to be hiding in bunkers or holes dug as shelters. One lady told us, “we couldn’t leave the hole for a week. We ate the little food had brought down with us. My children were crying constantly.”
One of the few men to have arrived in Lebanon said he had fled after his home was bombed and his 20-year-old son had been killed. He had no belongings with him. All those we spoke to reported great fear of approaching any checkpoint.