As the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) criticized on Tuesday, the severe earthquake in the night before last did not keep Turkey from bombing Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria: “Around midnight, Turkey attacked the area around Tell Rifaat – a region to the north of Aleppo where many Kurdish refugees from the region of Afrin have found shelter,” stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East Consultant. “It is a scandal that a NATO member is intentionally exacerbating a humanitarian catastrophe. Other NATO states have not issued a word of criticism.”
Due to the years-long blockade by Turkey and its western partners, the situation in the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria is getting even worse. “The entire medical care system had already been shattered in the course of the ongoing civil war and the attacks by Syria and Russia. Now, many wounded people are unable to get adequate treatment,” Sido added. “It is not only Assad who was and still is responsible for blocking aid to the Kurdish settlement areas. Most importantly, Turkey closed the border crossings to the Kurdish regions in northern Syria for aid deliveries. Now, the traumatized and freezing people have to bear the consequences.”
Out of consideration for NATO partner Turkey, the German Federal Government did not approve of any humanitarian aid for the Kurdish regions. “The representatives of the German Federal Government are not mentioning this in their statements concerning the earthquake. Almost all border crossings in northern Syria are controlled by Turkey. In order to open them, it would not be necessary to get approval by the UN Security Council,” Sido explained. “These border crossings were always open for Islamist fighters and modern weapons. Now, it is necessary to let through humanitarian aid to northern Syria and all of Syria.” The German Federal Government should take special measures in this regard.
According to our partner organization SOHR, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the number of victims in Syria has reached 1,597. The small Kurdish town of Jindires, to the west of Afrin City, was hit especially hard – and the city of Aleppo in the north of Syria was hit hard too.