Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Displaced Families Crowd Into Crumbled Islamic State Housing in Syria

Heather Murdock

   RAQQA, SYRIA - "If my children behave badly I tell them I will take
   them back to Idlib," says Abeel, a 36-year-old mother of nine children,
   smiling sadly at her joke. "Then they listen to me."

   Most children don't fear their homes, she says. But her children are
   terrified of returning to the near-constant bombardments of the past
   three months in Idlib province. One of her sons was killed in an
   airstrike two years ago.

   After nine years of war, more than half of the Syrian people have been
   displaced, like Abeel and her family, who now have fled the war five
   times. The battle in Idlib, however, where the war appears to be
   reaching a bloody conclusion, has created an unprecedented exodus.

.