BEIRUT: Cases of COVID-19 have increased alarmingly over the past month in Syria’s rebel-controlled northern region of Idlib, local authorities said Monday.
Although cases of the virus had stabilized earlier this year, sometimes numbering fewer than 100 per day, local officials told AFP contaminations have begun soaring again since mid-August.
On Sept. 6, more than 1,500 new cases were recorded in one day across Idlib region, which borders Turkey and is home to more than
3 million people.
“We are witnessing a sudden and severe wave,” said Hossam Qara Mohammad, the doctor in charge of battling the pandemic for the ad-hoc local administration.
Mohammad, who works for the health directorate in the enclave dominated by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group, said the Delta variant accounted for the vast majority of new infections.
The spike in Covid numbers came roughly two weeks after Syrian refugees in Turkey were granted one-off permission to visit relatives in the Idlib enclave for the Eid Al-Adha Muslim holiday a month ago.
Turkey holds considerable sway over the region and the factions that control it, including HTS, a group that includes former leaders of Al Qaeda’s former Syria franchise.
“The health system here has reached breaking point,” Mohammad said, adding that all beds in designated COVID-19 medical centers were occupied.
A total of 877 deaths have been reported in the Idlib region since the start of the pandemic, but data collection and vaccination campaigns are hindered by a dire humanitarian situation and ongoing conflict.
Regime and allied forces have sporadically continued to shell targets in Idlib despite an internationally brokered ceasefire that took effect last year.
In the latest instance of government attacks against medical facilities, a health center in the Idlib region’s village of Marayam was destroyed by shelling on Sept. 8.
The UN’s top humanitarian official told the Security Council last month that only 58,000 people had been vaccinated in Idlib and called for campaigns to be ramped up.
COVID-19 cases spike in Syria’s Idlib
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COVID-19 cases spike in Syria’s Idlib
RSF-encircled city in Sudan’s Kordofan targeted by drones: witness, military source
- The drone strikes hit a military base, a police headquarters, and the regional parliament
- A military source said the army’s air defenses had intercepted 20 aerial targets
PORT SUDAN: The city of El-Obeid in Sudan’s Kordofan region, largely encircled by paramilitary forces, was targeted by a drone attack on Friday that hit multiple government-linked facilities, several witnesses told AFP.
The drone strikes, which began early in the morning and lasted two hours, hit a military base, a police headquarters, the regional parliament and the premises of a telecoms company, witnesses said.
A military source told AFP that the army’s air defenses had intercepted 20 aerial targets.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s army has been waging a war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions more and created a grinding humanitarian crisis.
El-Obeid, located about 350 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of Khartoum, remains under army control after it managed to loosen a lengthy RSF siege last February.
The paramilitary force, however, has redoubled its efforts to take the city after forcing the army out of neighboring Darfur last year, cutting off most access routes in and out.
El-Obeid lies along a strategic route linking Darfur and Khartoum.
More than 88,000 have fled the Kordofan region since October.
