Displaced Syrians fear Turkish threats spell new exodus

SANDAF, Syria: Syria´s grinding conflict has already uprooted Ahmed Yassin and his family several times, but now they fear a threatened Turkish offensive will force them to flee the muddy camp they call home.

The 34-year-old, his wife and two children live in Sandaf in Syria´s Aleppo province -- just south of the border with Turkey, and under the control of Turkish-backed rebels. “Making a living is hard,” the labourer told AFP in the impoverished camp, as sheep grazed on the roadside nearby.

“On top of everything we´ve gone through -- the misery, the lack of job opportunities and poverty... we are now threatened with displacement yet again.” On November 20, Turkey began air strikes on Kurdish-held areas of Syria and Iraq in response to a deadly bombing in Istanbul the previous week.