A Russian-led Syrian regime offensive against the country's last rebel enclave has displaced more than half a million people in two months, the United Nations said Tuesday.
"Since 1 December, some 520,000 people have been displaced from their homes, the vast majority - 80 percent - of them women and children," David Swanson, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said.
The wave of displacement, which coincides with a biting winter, is one of the largest since the start of the Syrian war nearly nine years ago.
"This latest displacement compounds an already dire humanitarian situation on the ground, when over 400,000 people were displaced from the end of April through the end of August, many of them multiple times," Swanson said.
He said the U.N. was alarmed by the plight of more than three million people -- half of them displaced from their homes -- who live in Idlib province and surrounding areas.
Regime troops and militia backed by Russian and other allied forces have in recent weeks ramped up the pressure on the last pocket still controlled by rebels and jihadists.
They have retaken dozens of villages and some major towns - including the erstwhile rebel bastion of Maaret al-Numan - and are pushing northwards, sending displaced populations ever closer to the Turkish border.
Pro-Damascus fighters have pressed northwards along the M5 highway that connects the capital to Syria's second city Aleppo, crossing Idlib.
They are now aiming for the abandoned city of Saraqeb, which sits at the crossroads between the M5 and the M4 highway running west to east.
On Monday, regime forces seized the town of Nayrab on the M4, to the east of Saraqeb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
That latest advance left them just eight kilometres south of Idlib city, a major population centre and the province's capital.
A Turkish-Russian deal in 2018 saw Turkish troops deploy at observation posts around Idlib, but the agreement has failed to stem repeated regime military offensives.
The World Health Organisation expressed concern Monday that the conditions in the violence-plagued region were conducive to the outbreak of diseases.
The situation "characterised by lack of access and medicine, insufficient hygiene, chaos and mass displacement - poses a significant risk of outbreaks of measles, diarrhoeal diseases and other diseases," WHO regional emergency director Rick Brennan said.
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres Saturday urged all sides to halt the violence and allow for the necessary humanitarian effort to take place.
On Monday, Mohammad Hallaj, director of Syria's Response Coordination Group, said the forced migration gained momentum in Eriha, Jabal Zawiya and Saraqib regions of Idlib due to intensified attacks.
The attacks by the regime forces, Iranian-backed terror groups and Russian strikes stand as the main reasons behind the forced migration.
The majority of the displaced people arrived at the camps near Turkish border while some others took refuge in the areas cleared of terror elements following Turkey's military campaigns.
The displaced civilians are facing great difficulty in finding places to take shelter as the refugee camps are overcrowded and lack essential infrastructure. Thousands of families are in dire need of humanitarian aid as they struggle to live under harsh winter conditions.
In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited. But, more than 1,300 civilians have been killed in attacks by the regime and Russian forces in the de-escalation zone since then as the cease-fire continues to be violated.
In a fresh move, Turkey announced on Jan. 10 that a new cease-fire in Idlib would start just after midnight on Jan. 12. However, the regime and Iran-backed terrorist groups continued their attacks.
More than 1 million Syrians have moved near the Turkish border due to intense attacks over the last year.
Since the eruption of the bloody civil war in Syria in 2011, Turkey has taken in some 3.7 million Syrians who fled their country, making it the world’s top refugee-hosting country.
Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies
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