SARMADA, Syria--As the evacuation of thousands of people and fighters continued from the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo on Tuesday following a Russian-Turkish brokered deal, the rebel fighters in other areas struggle with tens of thousands of internally displaced people.
In a camp in Sarmada, west of Aleppo, a rebel fighter told reporters defiantly but rather unrealistically that they have come here only for a short time, vowing to reclaim the ancient city from the Syrian regime, after they lost almost all parts of the city in recent weeks.
"Those families who have come to this place are here only for a short time," the fighter from the so-called Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) told Rudaw, "God willing we will control Aleppo. We will not leave Aleppo for Iran, Russia, or any other party."
The rebel fighter is apparently out of touch with the reality, not because their main backer, Turkey, has agreed to the fall of Aleppo in a deal with Russia, but back in the camp, children are crying out of cold and hunger.
If they cannot feed people in areas they already control, getting back to Aleppo is not only a wishful thinking, it may also be a matter of time before this camp becomes the next target for an eventual regime offensive.
Others in their early teens who grew up in the civil war are repeating a chant that caused the war six years ago: The people want the fall of the regime.
The war has forced half the Syrian population from home, scattered around the country, or fled abroad.
Some who felt the civil war has no ending, swapped their tents for concrete homes, but even that is no guarantee against another possible displacement.
"It has been one year and half since I came to this camp," Mohammed, not his real name, told Rudaw, "I got only a tent at the beginning, now I have built a room and a kitchen for myself and my children, and now they [the rebels] have come telling me that I have to get out and head to another camp.
"It is cold. I do not have heater. I am sick, and I am hungry," an old woman tired of life in the camps said. She points out people like Mohammed are luckier because he has got a roof, for now.
"We do not have a tent, neither a roof, like everyone else. There is no school, how can you call this a life?" the old woman rhetorically asked, "If it were not for the aid we receive, we would have died from hunger."
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