(4 Feb 2020) A large number of displaced Syrians continued fleeing towards the Turkish border on Tuesday as fighting between government forces and rebel groups continued around Saraqeb. A long line of trucks was seen driving northeast on the Binish-Taftanaz road with people loading their kids and all their belongings to escape the bombing and the shelling.
One man said he had initially taken his family to the city of Idlib but there were no public services available and so he decided to move further north towards the border.
It wasn't immediately possible to tell how many people have been displaced in the last few days but over the last two months, according to reports, it has been more than half a million.
Speaking at the UN in Geneva on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that since December 1, more than 520,000 people had been displaced from their homes, the vast majority of them women and children.
Jens Laerke added that in 10 days starting Jan. 20, the U.N. Human Rights Office verified incidents in which at least 83 civilians, including 20 women and 33 children, were killed and dozens of other civilians were wounded in airstrikes and ground-based attacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitor, said that in recent weeks, Syrian troops have captured more than 60 towns, villages and hamlets as they try to open a highway linking the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's largest.
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