Syrian refugees in Iraq's Kurdish region desperate for reunion

Some Syrian mothers who were forced to escape into Iraq by the fighting between Kurdish fighters and the extremist al-Nusra militant group were sad for having left their children back in Syria, as some others have been stuck for days on the border point, waiting for their sons and daughters to make their way to the safer place and reunite with them.

This was the case at the Sahela border point in Peshkhabour region between Syria and Iraq since Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, ordered on Aug. 15 to open the border with Syria to help thousands of mainly Kurdish Syrians to flee the violence in their country.

Um Mohammed, in her 30s, told Xinhua that she and her husband and two of their children had a week-long risky trip until they managed to reach the border.

"We have suffered from hunger and slept outdoor without shelters for the whole week after being forced to leave our house. And our seven-year-old elder son were left in Syria with his crippled grandmother back there," she said, fighting tears.

"We were totally without food for two days ... (and) were forced to crush rice to make fine powder before mixing it with water to feed my hungry baby instead of milk just to keep him alive," said the woman, who finally had a safe temporary shelter and received her family's share of food and water.

Another grieved woman has been staying at the border point for the past two days and refused to leave until the arrival of the family of her daughter who should be on their way here.

"I have left my home back in Syria with my 14-year-old daughter after al-Nusra militants destroyed it and stole my family's properties," the woman told Xinhua, without giving her name.

She spent hours under the scorching sun, staring at the valley that thousands of Syrian refugees passed to reach the Iraqi Kurdish region.

"There is still hope that they will arrive and we can gather again. All I know is that they are on their way to Kurdistan," she said, raising her hand to the sky, praying for her daughter's safety.

Another woman passed the border with her family -- her face was pale and fainted immediately at the border point and was admitted to the tent of a medical center run by foreign physicians who volunteered to help refugees.

The woman's husband told Xinhua that "she was very tired because we have been moving for 24 days to reach Kurdistan."

Abu Abdo, who fled the violence in his village of Tal Aaran, said "Al-Nusra militants attacked our village and seized my house and stole my property. They even took our clothes and left nothing to us."

"They recently started to slaughter people, no matter children, men, women and the elderly without clear reasons," he said, adding that "this is a conspiracy against the Kurdish people aimed at displacing us from our homes."

For his part, Badr al-Din Rashido said he lost everything back in Syria: his house, several shops that he owned and some 24,000 U. S. dollars of cash.

"I was planning to leave for Europe to have better life for my family as I used to have enough money and properties, but all my dreams have gone. I don't even have the money for a bottle of water," Rashido told Xinhua.

An officer of Iraq's Kurdish security forces said the Kurdish forces had been ordered to offer every possible aid to the Syrian refugees in cooperation with international and local aid agencies.

"Our forces are receiving the refugees and protecting the operations of providing food and water and, then helping them to a refugee reception center near the border," the officer told Xinhua after he brought a group of refugees in his military vehicle.

"After the refugees have been registered by the aid agencies and the authorities of the region, we will supervise transferring them to major camps in the Kurdish provinces of Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Duhuk," he said.

"There are a large number of Syrian refugees who are streaming into Iraq, most of them were children and women who need healthcare and safe shelter, food, water and schools and other basic needs that we are providing in cooperation of the Kurdish government," Erdogan Kalkan, an official of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Xinhua.

According to the UNHCR, at least 45,000 Syrian refugees entered Iraq's Kurdish region in the recent influx after the regional authorities decided to open the border for them, raising the total number of Syrian refugees in Iraq to some 200,000.

The infighting and violence against Kurds in the Kurdish areas in Syria prompted Barzani to threaten earlier this month to intervene in Syria to defend them.

"It appears that innocent Kurdish citizens, women and children are under threat of death and terrorism, then the Iraqi Kurdistan region would be prepared to defend them," Barzani said in a statement on Aug. 10.

The Kurds in Syria account for 10 percent of the country's population. Their areas in northeastern Syria have been the scene of clashes between Islamic extremist militant groups and the Kurdish security forces which took control of security in their areas after the withdrawal of the Syrian government forces last year.

Earlier, the UNHCR said the latest major exodus from Syria was among the largest during the conflict, which had entered its third year.