AL BAB, Syria — In the days before the Daesh terror group’s Syrian bastion Al Bab fell, Umm Abdo’s family sheltered underground both from the bombing and from extremists themselves looking for somewhere to hide.

In a narrow rubbish-strewn street lined with broken and blackened stalls, the 30-year-old mother of four told of their suffering in the days before the northern town fell on Thursday to Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies.

“Each time they [Daesh] found a family in a basement, they’d chase them out so they could take their place,” the veiled and abaya-wearing Umm Abdo told AFP.

“They wouldn’t allow anyone to go out into the street, and at the same time you couldn’t take cover in a basement. So you just had to endure the bombardment,” she said, one of her sons in a stroller.

At Umm Abdo’s side, her three other children appeared to have regained some of their composure.

Clutching teddy bears, they fed a street cat that had somehow survived the two-month onslaught that eventually chased the Daesh fighters from their last main stronghold in Aleppo province.

“We hid in the basement and made sure no one knew we were there. It was awful,” Umm Abdo said.

They had a major fear of being discovered. “When one of my children cried, he was scolded,” she recalled.

Al Bab now bears the vivid scars of the battle unleashed on December 10 by Turkey and its rebel allies, after they took the border town of Jarabulus last August.

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