With just days to go, Helen Mohamad Othman is finalising preparations for her annual Christmas donation. For the past two years, the 34-year-old Kurdish woman, from the Syrian city of Qamishli, has donned a red Santa suit and a white beard to deliver gifts in some of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods.

This year, Helen has been working overtime. In addition to the children of Qamishli, the mother-of-two will provide a little festive joy to some of the boys and girls recently displaced by Turkey’s invasion of northeast Syria. In early October, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered his forces to launch a cross-border air and land incursion against the People’s Protection Units, a Kurdish-led militia which Turkey lists as a terrorist organisation.

Families were taken by surprise when months of relative calm gave way to a surge in violence and what has widely been called 'ethnic cleansing'. Amid bombs and shelling, residents from some of the cities on the Syria-Turkey border took flight, fearing for their lives.

According to United Nations estimates, more than 200,000 were displaced in just over a week, while local health authorities have put the civilian death toll at close to 500.

It goes without saying, then, that this festive period will be a darker one for hundreds of families across Syria’s northeastern corner, with more than 70,000 individuals still displaced in ill-equipped shelters and neighbouring Iraq - and many more mourning the loss of their loved ones.

Less than two weeks after the invasion, Helen had reached out to 250 displaced families in the cities of Qamishli and Hassakeh. She bought, packed and delivered the much-needed staples of Syrian cooking – including jam, molasses, cans of chicken, tahini and sesame oil.

She became one of many civilians in north east Syria pitching in to help people affected by the invasion. But her support of the more vulnerable began more than two years ago.