Most of the refugees have had to pay traffickers $400 to cross the Iraqi border and save themselves.

The camp’s guests accuse Turkey, and in particular President Erdoğan, of having inflicted inhuman suffering on the inhabitants of Rojava, obliging them to abandon their homes and lands to live in cramped temporary tents, exposed to strong wind and rain. The Iraqi Kurdistan region is still greatly at risk of infiltration by Daesh representatives and the camp’s director, Botan Salahaddin, has denounced the fact that ISIS sleeper cells could infiltrate the camp and hide among the refugees. With winter’s arrival and the heating problems this involves, she says, the camp’s refugees are showing clear signs of mental instability. Letizia Gualdoni, a nurse working for Médecins sans frontières which runs the camp, has reported the lack of medical staff and the inefficiency of health care and hygienic facilities. New arrivals are provided with hot meals, kerosene, and blankets. The Barzani Charity Foundation, a local NGO founded by Masrour Barzani, former prime minister of Kurdistan’s regional government, manages this camp together with the UNHCR. Its population is mainly Kurdish and Sunni. Bardarash is a city situated in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, in the Dohuk Governorate, 70 km north of Erbil and 32 km northeast of Mosul. Over 12,000 Kurdish Syrians, almost all of them children, victims of the Turkish offensive, are currently housed in the Bardarash Camp. Tens of thousands of Kurdish-Syrian farmers and their families from Rojava have taken refuge in northern Iraq. Turkish military operations in North-East Syria, named “Operation Peace Spring” and launched on October 9th, 2019, have caused the exodus of over 200,000 people and the death of about 90 civilians according to data provided by the Kurdish Red Crescent operating in Syria.

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