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Local Syrian refugees fear for family back home amid Turkey attacks

LOWELL, Mass. — A local Syrian refugee family now living in Lowell is terrified for their relatives who stayed back home.

Amid attacks from Turkish troops just days after President Trump announced he was pulling U.S. troops out of the region, Syrians are fearing for their lives.

Zainab Abdo and her mother have been glued to Arabic television, but all they can do is watch and pray as their homeland is caught in the middle of a planned military attack from Turkey.

"She's crying because her brother is there," said Abdo. "She wants to talk to him but she couldn’t."

Turkish forces launched the attack on Wednesday along the Turkish border, where Abdo and her family are from.

"We're so worried because my friends, family, they don’t know where to go," said Abdo. "[There'​​​​​​s] no food, they cut everything. Like no electricity, nothing there now."

The Abdo family left Syria for the United States three years ago, bringing nothing with them but a picture of their grandmother and uncle. They arrived in Massachusetts without speaking any English.

Zainab and her family - mother, father, sister and three brothers - barely made it out of Syria alive when their Aleppo home was bombed back in 2013.

In the attacks that followed since then, their grandmother was killed in a bombing about a year and a half ago.

What began as a peaceful uprising against the president of Syria nearly eight years ago has now turned into a full-scale civil war that has killed nearly 400,000 people so far.

"If the war starts again, the people [will not be able to go] anywhere because they close the border everywhere," said Abdo. "Germans don’t want Syrians. Isreal doesn't want Syrians. They will all die there."

Abdo says she hopes to one day be able to return and visit Syria, but right now she's concerned for her relatives' safety - who they have lost all contact with for the time being.

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