Turkey is accused of continuing its bombardment of the Kurds. Northern Syria is grappling with the emergency caused by the devastating earthquake of 6 February.
Syria is in desperate need of humanitarian aid following the devastating earthquake of 6 February, which struck the north of the country and southern Turkey, yet not only are relief efforts being obstructed by the Turkish army deployed along the border, but the latter has also launched a series of attacks against the Kurds.
The alarm is being raised by the threatened populations themselves, whose cries have been picked up and reported by only a handful of Western media outlets. Just two days after the earthquake, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attacked the Tal Rifaat area, which had already been struck by the earthquake. "Kurdish displaced people from the Afrin region had taken refuge in the area north of Aleppo," said Kamal Sido, Middle East expert at the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "It is scandalous that a Nato state is exacerbating a humanitarian catastrophe. There is not a word of criticism from the other member countries of the Alliance."
The supply of Kurdish areas is not being obstructed by Assad alone: Turkey, in particular, has closed border crossings to humanitarian supplies heading for Kurdish areas of northern Syria. On top of this come the bombardments, confirmed by Enrico La Forgia, editor-in-chief of Lo Spiegone, who when asked directly by LifeGate said: "Although sporadic for the time being, the attacks are continuing. The Syrian Democratic Forces and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party, ed.) in Turkey have announced a unilateral ceasefire to allow for better management of the crisis in north-west Syria and southern Turkey. We do not yet know what this request will lead to: at the moment it could result in a de-escalation on Turkey's part, or come to nothing."
A Turkish drone struck a Kurdish target — a car — causing it to explode. "One of my sources on the ground tells me of at least one person killed in the attacks." The news of the attack was also confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The PKK issued a statement accusing the policies of the Turkish government of causing the devastating effects of last Monday's earthquake. "The Turkish government is using the effects of the earthquake as an excuse to launch new wars," it reads. Erdoğan's party, the AKP, and the nationalist MHP are also accused of having used funds earmarked for the earthquake to enrich themselves and to subsidise the war against the Kurds.
That Turkey is preventing the flow of humanitarian aid to the Kurds affected by the earthquake is a fact confirmed by several sources. The latest confirmation comes from Fee Baumann, programme coordinator of the Kurdish Red Crescent, who spoke to the Dire news agency: "Syrian government officials stopped us at a checkpoint 50 kilometres from Aleppo, asking us to hand over our entire cargo of aid to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. For us this is unacceptable, not least because we consider it very likely that this organisation will not deliver the supplies to the majority-Kurdish areas."
Baumann adds that "local media are reporting the news that Turkey, which effectively controls the areas near Afrin, is putting pressure on Damascus to prevent aid from reaching certain populations, as well as blocking aid itself in the areas under its control." Around 5,000 families have left Aleppo to go to displaced persons camps where thousands of people are already living: all of them are afraid to live in houses already damaged and weakened by years of war.
