The 200,000 Invisible Victims of the Fight with ISIS

As U.S.-backed Syrian fighters closed in on the Islamic State-controlled city Manbij, almost 200,000 people have found themselves completely uprooting, paying a steep price in the battle to expel ISIS from the city. A United Nations humanitarian agency estimated that aside from roughly 200,000 people already displaced, 216,000 more are at risk if the fighting continues.

Syrian fighters have surrounded Manbij near the Turkish border, waging war on the jihadist group with U.S. support. The civilians caught in the crossfire, however, have few places to turn, with most heading to nearby towns in the hopes of escaping the violence. On top of this, the people of Manbij might fight leaving the ISIS-controlled territory easier said than done, with the Office for Coordination of Humanity Affairs (OCHA) revealing their already critical need for food, water, shelter, and health care. Residents of Tabqa, a city on the other side of Lake Assad from Manbij, could be forced to follow suit soon, with their city as the target of a Russian-backed offensive; though OCHA gave no figures for the potential for displacement in Tabqa, the struggles will be much the same. Both assaults, however, have weakened ISIS’s hold on its capital and reportedly caused ISIS militants to flee Manbij with their families as attacks raged on that would kill 150 militants. Regardless, the operations, two of the biggest yet to combat the Islamic State, could not only loosen ISIS’s influence in their Syrian capital city of Raqqa, but also have acute consequences for civilians as well.

Featured Image via Flickr/Kurdishstruggle