The “Menteshor” health center in the heart of the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobani has been receiving fatalities and dozens of wounded as a result of shelling carried out by Syrian government–affiliated factions on villages and areas surrounding the city in northern Syria, according to a medical Dr. Avin Khalil, who spoke to Alhurra.
Khalil said that the center where she works is designated for primary health care but has been forced to treat the wounded amid severe shortages of medicine and a major lack of medical staff.
Factions affiliated with the Syrian government have been besieging the city of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) from the east, west, and south for about ten days, while the Turkish army has tightened its siege from the north.
Despite the two sides announcing an extension of the truce last Saturday for 15 days, clashes have not stopped. Government-affiliated factions have continued to shell villages and towns surrounding Ayn al-Arab with heavy artillery and drones, according to information obtained by Alhurra from independent Syrian activists in the city.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement on Monday that factions affiliated with the Damascus government violated the truce more than 20 times since its extension on Sunday, noting that their fighters had repelled several attacks by those factions on villages and towns in Kobani and the Hasakah countryside over the past hours.
Avin has been unable to return home for nearly a week, as the hospital has been receiving large numbers of wounded patients in addition to sick displaced people who fled to Kobani after Syrian factions took control of their towns and villages in Deir Hafer and other areas of the Aleppo countryside.
Lawyer Mustafa Sheikh Muslim describes conditions in Kobani as catastrophic. He told Alhurra that “markets are almost empty of most food items and essential medicines, especially diabetes and heart medications, and the city has been without water or electricity for more than a week.”
Sheikh Muslim said he feared the current crisis could continue for a longer period, warning of catastrophic humanitarian consequences amid the complete absence of local and international relief efforts and the total shortage of basic supplies in markets. He also expressed concerns among residents about the possibility of massacres in Kobani similar to those that occurred on the Syrian coast and in the south.
Ten people were killed or injured on Monday in Kobani following a Turkish airstrike that coincided with attacks by Syrian government factions on villages southeast of the city.
Shira Ossi, a leader in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, told Alhurra that “five people were killed and five others seriously wounded, all from the same family, in an airstrike carried out by a Turkish drone that targeted a civilian home in the village of Kharab Ashk, southeast of Kobani.”
The city centers of Qamishli, Hasakah, and Kobani are witnessing the displacement of large numbers of residents fleeing the shelling in the Aleppo countryside, Hasakah towns, Raqqa, and Tabqa. The Kurdish Red Crescent, in coordination with local and international organizations, is distributing displaced families among mosques and schools amid falling temperatures.
Ibrahim Shikho, a Syrian citizen from Afrin, was displaced from his city in 2018 after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control of it. He was forced to live with thousands of displaced Afrin residents in the city of Tabqa. But, as he says, the war did not leave him alone. For the fourth time, he was forced to flee—this time from Tabqa, where he had settled, along with his peers to Hasakah after a journey that lasted several hours overnight, escaping shelling and intensifying fighting between Syrian government forces and the SDF.
Many displaced people say they came under fire while fleeing from Syrian government factions, whether through direct sniper fire, stray bullets, or ambushes by pro-government tribal fighters—as happened to one family whose seven members were summarily executed in the field, according to his account.
For her part, Hadiya Abdullah, co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent, pointed out that difficult conditions resulting from the war, continued shelling, and falling temperatures have prevented sheltering displaced people in camps or establishing new camps inside the cities to which they fled. As a result, they have been housed in schools and mosques.
“The number of displaced families who have arrived so far in the city of Qamishli has exceeded 1,300 families. In the subdistrict of Karkeh Lêgeh, which is part of Hasakah, the number of displaced families who have arrived so far has exceeded 800,” Abdullah told Alhurra.
She added that the Kurdish Red Crescent is working with relevant international bodies, especially in besieged areas or those under heavy shelling—to open safe humanitarian corridors to bring medical and food supplies to civilians, such as in the city of Kobani and other towns and villages in Hasakah. She also noted that four children have died in recent days in Kobani due to low temperatures and a lack of medicines.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement on Monday that the city of Kobani has witnessed a large wave of internal displacement as a result of renewed, intense shelling by transitional government factions targeting villages across multiple fronts in the area.
According to the Observatory, Syrian government factions launched heavy bombardment on the villages of Birk, Etweran, Bermel, Khanik Afdo, and Khanik Khalyan along Kobani’s southern front. The factions also targeted the villages of Qanaya, Buraz, Oweina, Iljagh, Dikerman, Zarkutek, and Al-Qasimiya west of the city, on the western bank of the Euphrates River.
The Observatory also reported continued clashes between forces affiliated with the transitional government and the Syrian Democratic Forces in the village of Kharab Ashk and the vicinity of Jalabiya, as well as the villages of Khwidan, Mandik, and Khanik in southern rural Kobani. It noted that transitional government forces targeted the villages with tanks and indiscriminate shelling, prompting retaliatory fire from the SDF.
The Observatory explained that the ongoing skirmishes and clashes between the two sides are occurring within the context of clear violations that followed the announcement of a ceasefire between them.
