EASTERN DEIR EZ-ZOR, Syria – Local officials have registered 28,000 people fleeing ISIS-held territory in eastern Deir ez-Zor province in the last 45 days.
It is not an easy journey though. One woman said three of her six children were killed by an unidentified force.
“They killed my three children who were 8, 10, and 14 years old. They hit us with artillery. We had sheltered in a hole where there was no medicine, nothing. We are pleading and screaming out for help,” said the woman who gave her name simply as Duha.
She is from Aleppo and admitted her husband had been a member of ISIS.
Authorities receive about 400 displaced people every day. All are carefully screened and those believed to be members of ISIS are interrogated.
“We break down the lists, separating the names. The many Iraqis will be separated from the Syrians,” explained Mohammed Baveh Jomard, head of IDP registration in eastern Deir ez-Zor.
“What has surprised me is that none of them are from here. The indigenous people from here make up just five percent of those fleeing. The rest are from Idlib, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo.”
About 4,000 have confessed to membership in ISIS.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have slowed their operations because ISIS is using human shields, but the expectation is they will declare victory soon.