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As fight­ing edges clos­er to camps hous­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als in north­east Syr­ia, What­sApp mes­sages cir­cu­lat­ing on­line de­scribe fear, aban­don­ment and the col­lapse of ba­sic hu­man­i­tar­i­an sup­port.

In one voice record­ing, a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al in one of the camps says the area was plunged in­to dark­ness af­ter three elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tors were re­moved. The gen­er­a­tors, sup­plied by pri­vate con­trac­tors and paid for month­ly by res­i­dents, pro­vid­ed heat and pow­er to tents.

“The war is pend­ing, it’s very close by,” the voice says. “They pro­vid­ed three gen­er­a­tors which we pay elec­tric bills for each month. Any­way, they took those three gen­er­a­tors and they ran away. So, we have ab­solute­ly no elec­tric.”