Around 180, 000 people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting escalated in the northeast Syria, the United Nation’s humanitarian wing says.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while reporting the figures on Tuesday, said incidents of violence were still witnessed despite a five-day ceasefire.

The Turkish military operation in Syria was launched on Wednesday, 9 October, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would pull American forces from Syria’s northern frontier, where they served as a buffer between the Turkish military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier called for a de-escalation of the conflict, saying that he did not “believe in military solutions for the Syrian problem, also for any other problem in the world. I always strongly believe in political solutions.”

The U.N. said 75 percent of the people displaced were women and children. It added that the Syria situation was creating a refugee concern in neighbouring Iraq, with more than 7,100 Syrian refugees arriving there since last Monday.

The agency said that the fighting had destroyed critical civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities.

The military operation prompted the European Union to call for an arms embargo against Turkey.

Source:United Nations