Syrian refugees in Turkey feel Aleppo's pain

By Volkan Kasik and Ismail Hakki Demir

MALATYA/KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey

The hearts of Syrian refugees in Turkey are going out to relatives living under siege in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo.

Syrian regime forces have mounted a massive aerial campaign against opposition-held parts of eastern Aleppo in recent weeks in an attempt to retake districts captured by armed opposition groups four years ago.

On Tuesday evening, regime forces and opposition groups agreed to a Turkey-brokered ceasefire deal with a view to evacuating civilians from the eastern party of the city.

On Wednesday, however, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Syrian regime and its allies of trying to derail the ceasefire.

Eager for any good news about their relatives trapped in Aleppo, Syrian refugees in Turkey have flocked to online social media and television to hear the latest developments regarding the war-battered city.

Mohamed Juma, a Syrian refugee in Turkey’s eastern province of Malatya, said his parents were still trapped in Aleppo.

"Most of my relatives have lost their lives in Aleppo," said Juma, who fled to Turkey with his four children more than one year ago.

"I try to speak with my father and mother almost every day, but the situation is dire," he said. "Aleppo has been destroyed. There is neither peace nor life there."

Juma said he was praying to be reunited with his family in Turkey.

"The only thing we ask from God is to end this war. I don’t want more people to die," he asserted.

Juma voiced his gratitude to Turkey and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the country’s open-door policy, which has allowed at least three million Syrian refugees to settle in Turkey.

Dying city

Mohamed Haruf, another Syrian refugee in Turkey, said he was looking for any information about Aleppo on social media.

"Our hearts are in Aleppo," said Haruf, who came to Turkey four years ago from the war-weary city.

"We are thinking about our relatives all the time and following social media, television and internet to get information about them," he said.

Meanwhile, a group of Syrian students in Turkey’s southern province of Kahramanmaras have launched a fund-raising campaign to help civilians trapped in Aleppo.

"There is a big war in Aleppo," Ibrahim Najar, a student, said. "People are dying; they have no food and all the roads are blocked."

Student Hasan Ukla said they were also collecting food and other commodities to help Aleppo residents.

"We ask help from you to make our voices heard," he said. "Babies, mothers and fathers are dying."

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced by the conflict.