Tel Abiad City living a new “ban of life”

Abdalaziz Alhamza – Exclusive – Raqqa is being slaughtered silently

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ISIS militant group imposed a curfew in the city of Tel Abiad North of Raqqa province, runs from eleven at night until six in the morning, they prevented civilians from exiting their houses under any circumstances, where the group’s patrols have spread and shot towards anything that moves, as they arrested anyone who breaking curfew.

In spite of that time of curfew is during night only, however there are exceptional circumstances may compel some people to go out especially health conditions, illness knows no curfew, as well as the child who gets a fever will not recover from all excuses provided by the group.

So, because of the curfew a woman was going to lose her baby, in while the time of birth has come in a late hour of the night, she was taken to hospital, an ISIS patrol shot them and forced them to return to their house, relatives of the family reported for the team “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently”, that the husband risked his life, to go and bring a midwife, after her situation became very dangerous, knowing that the militants have shot him during his return to the house.

On the other hand, an informed source within ISIS justified the curfew, saying that it imposed to curb defections suffered by the group, where they set up roadblocks at night to catch defector members who are trying to flee into Turkish territory, most defectors are using the road of Tel Abiad at night to escape from the territory of the group and return to their homes.

However, a smuggler has denied this, saying that goods smuggling operations are taking place at night to and from Turkey, where smugglers pay sums of money to ISIS members to open the way for them throughout the night to ease smuggling operation, note that most smuggled goods to Turkey are tobacco, the group knows this, and gets one million Syrian pounds for every car packed with tobacco in order to allow it to cross.

The city has witnessed the injury of young man shot in the leg as he left his home for the night, where he was heading to the hospital to bring medicine for his little brother, who suffered by asthma attack due to the dust storm experienced by the city during the past two days, where he ministered himself to the hospital because nobody dare to get out of the house in order to minister him, after he walked nearly 700 meters despite his injury.

The last curfew in the city was two years ago, when regime forces imposed it after rebels advanced towards the city, where it did not last more than a week, later Free Syrian Army has entered the city to liberate it, the curfew was broken and life returned to the city.

media activist from the city of Raqqa, student at the Faculty of Law at the University of the Euphrates. Director of the Media Office of Raqqa, founding member of "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", founding member of the documentary project of "Sound and Picture". I work in documenting violations committed by Assad's regime and ISIS group and extremist organizations inside the city of Raqqa, as I work in programming, design and visual media. I hold a certificate of coach in digital security, and a certificate of journalist coach, and a certificate in documenting violations against human rights, and a certificate in electronic advocacy. I underwent a training under the supervision of "Cyber-Arabs" in collaboration with the Institute for War and Peace "IWPR", about the management of electronic websites and leadership of advocacy campaigns, and a training of press photography under the supervision of the photojournalist "Peter Hove Olesen".