You don't know where to go. Tens of thousands of people fled the Syrian-Russian border to the Syrian-Turkish border every day in the past week.
The refugee camps are overcrowded. It's raining. It is cold. People want to get out of Syria. But the escape route is blocked. Turkey sealed off the border with a wall.
Meanwhile, Russia, Iran and the regime of Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad are relentlessly driving their offensive towards the Idlib province, the last remaining rebel stronghold in northwestern Syria.
Russia promises humanitarian aid to Assad regime
Only a week before Christmas, Russia's deputy prime minister, Yuri Borisov, had traveled to Damascus to meet with Assad. Officially, the meeting was primarily about expanding bilateral trade relations and rebuilding Syria.
AFP
A carpet and chairs: When they flee, people load their belongings onto their vehicles
Among other things, according to the Interfax agency, the Kremlin plans to invest around half a billion dollars in the expansion of the Mediterranean port in Tartus over the next four years, which is also an important extraterritorial naval base for Russia. Borissow also promised 100,000 tons of grain to the Syrian regime as humanitarian aid.
It will never reach the starving civilians in Idlib. For them, Idlib, the city and the province of the same name, has become a deadly trap. The United Nations reports massive bombings on cities like Maraat al-Numan and Saraqeb.
235,000 civilians on the run
At least ten people, including six children, died in a rocket attack on a school in Jobas this week, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.
According to the UN, 235,000 civilians have now fled Idlib. There is no end in sight. Because the Syrian civil war is going into a possibly last, cruel round.
AFP
Escape from death: convoys in Idlib
There is hardly a taboo that Assad, with the help of Russia and Iran, has not broken in this war: he has bombed hospitals and schools, used poison gas, and starved entire cities. In this way he gradually recaptured Syria.
Jihadists want to defend Idlib against all attacks
In Idlib, in addition to up to three million civilians, tens of thousands of rebels have entrenched themselves, most of them jihadists from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia. You have already announced that you will defend Idlib at all costs.
Just a year ago, it looked as if the conflict over Idlib could be politically resolved. Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supports the rebels in Idlib, had agreed to create a buffer zone: Putin blew off the Idlib offensive, which Erdogan should disarm the HTS militia for.
Neither worked. Erdogan has not got the HTS under control. And Assad did not abandon his plan to completely recapture Syria. So it was only a matter of time before the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran would attack the province again.
Syrian troops have converted Turkish observation posts
Erdogan is now trying to prevent the worst. A Turkish delegation traveled to Russia earlier this week to promote a ceasefire. However, it doesn't look like Ankara could stop the advance on Idlib.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem also met this week, one day before Christmas. They reaffirmed the common goal of bringing Syria back under the control of the Damascus dictator.
REUTERS
Sergey Lavrov and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem
Its troops have already converted one of the twelve observation posts of the Turkish army in Idlib. If Erdogan does not agree on a deal with Putin, he will soon have to withdraw his troops from north-west Syria.
The United States has almost completely withdrawn from Syria - on the orders of President Donald Trump. He now warned Russia, Iran and Syria's regime via Twitter against continuing to bomb Idlib and killing thousands of innocent civilians. "Don't do it!" He wrote. It is more realistic that the war will continue in the new year, Idlib will be an inferno.