Date: Oct 18, 2017
Source: The Daily Star
Raqqa battle over but crisis escalating, aid group warns
Agence France Presse
BEIRUT: The city of Raqqa has been taken from Daesh (ISIS) but the humanitarian crisis in the region is still escalating, Save the Children said Tuesday. “The military offensive in Raqqa may be coming to an end, but the humanitarian crisis is greater than ever,” the aid group’s Syria director Sonia Khush said in a statement.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-Arab alliance that has been fighting to capture Raqqa since June, announced Tuesday that it had fully captured the city.

The military development leaves the militants’ self-styled “caliphate” in tatters but Save the Children warned that “some 270,000 people who have fled the Raqqa fighting are still in critical need of aid, and camps are bursting at the seams.”

It said that most Raqqa families had no homes to go back to and that thousands of civilians were still being displaced in Deir al-Zor, where fighting was still raging Tuesday.

The aid group said that the reconstruction effort would require massive investment and that funding would also be needed to bring children back to school.

“Many are plagued by nightmares from witnessing horrific violence and will need extensive psychological support,” the aid group said.

After Daesh captured Raqqa in 2014, the city become synonymous with the militant group’s worst abuses. The SDF Monday retook an infamous roundabout where Daesh used to carry out public beheadings and crucifixions.