The civil war has left at least 500,000 people dead, forced half the population from their homes and pushed millions to seek refuge in the Middle East region and Europe. It is now the scene of an unfolding humanitarian disaster and the dying days of Syria’s revolution. Home to hundreds of thousands of people who escaped other battles, Idlib is the final opposition-held enclave. If Turkey could push the jihadis far enough away that they could not threaten Russian bases, Moscow pledged to restrain its ally Damascus.īut both eventually blamed the other for failing to stick to the bargain, and by April 2019, the offensive was back on. Ankara, which backs many of the remaining militant groups opposing Mr Assad, had promised to separate out the opposition fighters they support from jihadis formerly linked to al-Qaeda. The vast majority - 80 per cent - are women and children.Ī September 2018 agreement between Russia, Iran and Turkey - the Syrian war’s main international players - had until last spring slowed the regime’s advance on Idlib. The UN says that in the past 10 weeks, 800,000 people have run for their lives. The women’s rights activist, her doctor husband and two sons are just four of some 3m civilians trapped in north-west Syria close to the Turkish border, where an intense bombing campaign and advancing ground assault by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have forced more people to flee in a short period than at any other time since the conflict erupted in 2011. Muzna, who asked not to give her family name, was like others interviewed in Idlib by the Financial Times, reached by telephone. “If they could, they’d probably take the bricks ,” she says, “because they know once the regime forces come they will burn everything and leave our town without a single hut.”

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