Syrian Monitor warns for humanitarian disaster in Afrin, calls for international action

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) in an appeal on Friday called on international organizations and the UN to open a humanitarian crossing for Afrin to Aleppo and to help the civilians in Afrin with direct aid amidst world inaction in Afrin.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) received information from several reliable sources that the humanitarian situation is getting catastrophic in Afrin area, the SOHR said.

Reports suggest thousands of civilians are now sleeping on the open in Afrin city and the surrounding villages and farms nearby, in addition to the displacement of more than 12 thousand civilians from the area towards the towns of Nubl and al-Zahraa in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

“We call the High commissioner for human rights and the international organization of human rights to move for the relief of hundreds of thousands of citizens who are suffering hard humanitarian conditions in conjunction with the killing operation by the escalated Turkish shelling by warplanes, artilleries and rocket launchers, which killed and injured hundreds of civilians,” SOHR said.

“Also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights calls again on the UN to open a humanitarian crossing through the regime’s controlled areas towards Aleppo city, through which more than one million people can survive, with approaching to impose a siege by the Turkish forces on and in the light of escalating the aerial and ground shelling, by the Turkish forces and warplanes as well as the factions of Operation “Olive Branch”,” the SOHR statement added.

 As of mid-February, the offensive had displaced an estimated 35,000–50,000 people, according to the UN. An ICRC and SARC humanitarian convoy reached Afrin on March 1, delivering approximately 430 metric tons (MT) of emergency relief commodities sufficient for 50,000 people, a USAID report said.

There are now fears that thousands of people from Afrin and displaced people are now stuck after Turkish-backed forces are getting closer to Afrin city.

“At least 5 citizens [were killed] by the Turkish airstrikes today including 2 children and a woman, and injuring others in Mrimin village, raising the death toll to 204 Syrian citizens of the Kurds, Arabs and Armenians, including 32 children and 26 women,” the SOHR said.

The civilians killed in the Turkish aerial, rocket and artillery shelling, and executions carried out against citizens in Afrin area, since the Turks launched the so-called Operation Olive Branch on the 20th of January 2018.

Sherwan Berry, the co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC) told The Region that on Thursday morning ‘we faced another massacre by the Turkish airstrike’. In the Turkish attack, three children were killed in the village of Turinda, near Afrin.

Rashid Ibrahim (3), Hala Ibrahim (14), and Hussein Ibrahim (10), were killed in the attack. “We could evacuate the bodies,” he said. “Also the mother and her youngest child were heavily injured and were evacuated to the Afrin hospital,” he said.

The death of civilians was also confirmed by CNN. Bnafsh Jmmo told CNN that three of her children died in an airstrike on Thursday morning.

“The situation is getting worse and worse,” Berry told The Region. “Because a lot of people have been displaced from the areas that Turkey and its allies occupied in Afrin. There are more than 100,000 people that came to the city of Afrin, we are doing our best to provide them with shelter, food, and health, but it’s too much for us as well,” he said.

He added that according to KRC documented from 20 January until 7 March, the death of 227 civilians in the Turkish attacks, including 32 children, and 28 women. “651 civilians were injured, including 87 children and 93 women,” he added.

Ilham Ahmed, the joint president of the Democratic Council of Syria, an Afrin native, warned on Friday for a humanitarian disaster in Afrin under the silence from the international community.

She pointed out that about one million people are trapped inside the city due to water and communications were cut off and constant barbaric bombardment

“Again history repeats itself, they failed the Kurds again to show that there is no friend of the Kurds but the mountains,” she posted on Twitter.