BEIRUT: Amnesty International on Friday called on the United Nations to keep delivering crucial aid to quake-stricken Syrians via two crossings in rebel-held areas even if authorization from Damascus expires.
On February 6, a devastating earthquake hit Turkiye and Syria, killing more than 55,000 people across both countries.
The UN chief said on February 13 that Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to open the Bab Al-Salama and Al-Rai crossings from Turkiye to allow aid to enter for an initial period of three months.
Damascus has yet to announce an extension of the authorization.
The UN “must continue to deliver aid” through those two crossings after May 13 “regardless of whether the government renews” its consent, Amnesty said in a statement.
Before the disaster, almost all crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in rebel-controlled areas of north and northwest Syria was being delivered from Turkiye through one conduit — the Bab Al-Hawa crossing.
The number of UN-approved crossings into Syria had shrunk from four in 2014, after years of pressure from regime allies China and Russia at the UN Security Council.
Three days after the quake, the first UN aid convoy crossed into north and northwest Syria and carried tents and other supplies that had been expected before the disaster, sparking fierce criticism from local humanitarian groups and activists.
“The lives of more than four million people are at stake and international law is clear that their rights must be paramount,” Amnesty’s Sherine Tadros said in the statement.
“The UN should take a clear stand against the cruel political machinations that have hampered its humanitarian operations in northern Syria for several years,” Tadros added.
Turkish-backed rebels operate the Bab Al-Salama and Al-Rai crossings in the northern Aleppo province, while the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham controls Bab Al-Hawa in the Idlib region.
The UN estimated earlier this week that Syria needs almost $15 billion to recover following the quake, and put total damages and losses for the country at almost $9 billion.
UN must keep moving quake aid to Syria after deadline: Amnesty
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UN must keep moving quake aid to Syria after deadline: Amnesty
- Three days after the quake, the first UN aid convoy crossed into north and northwest Syria and carried tents and other supplies that had been expected before the disaster
- "The lives of more than four million people are at stake and international law is clear that their rights must be paramount," said Amnesty's Sherine Tadros
As Iran conflict spills over, Iraq’s Kurds say ‘this war is not mine’
- The Kurds, an ethnic minority with a distinct culture and language, are rooted in the mountainous region spread across Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and Iran
- “This isn’t my war,” said 58-year-old Satar Barsirini
SORAN, Iraq: On a deserted road not too far from the border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, Satar Barsirini looked up at the sky, now streaked with jets and drones.
Iraq’s Kurdish region has found itself caught in the crossfire of a regional war triggered by US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic.
Dressed like the Kurdish fighters he once served alongside, Barsirini still wears the khaki shalwar, fitted jacket and scarf wrapped around his waist.
Though recently retired, he refuses to give up his peshmerga uniform as he tills his small plot of land.
The rumble of jets and hum of drones “come from everywhere. Especially at night,” he told AFP in the hamlet of Barsirini, dozens of kilometers from the border.
He described the “shiver in our flesh” as the drones hit the ground outside.
“I feel bad for the people, because we have paid a lot in blood to liberate Kurdistan... We just want to live.”
Irbil, the autonomous region’s capital, and the valleys leading to the border have been targeted by Tehran and the Iraqi armed groups it supports.
American bases there have come under fire, as have positions held by Iranian Kurdish parties — the same ones US President Donald Trump said it would be “wonderful” to see storm Iran.
But Iran warned on Friday it would target facilities in Iraqi Kurdistan if fighters crossed into its territory.
“This isn’t my war,” said 58-year-old Barsirini.
He recalled the brutal repression and flight into the snowy mountains after the 1991 Kurdish uprising that followed the first Gulf War.
- ‘Dangerous people’ -
The uprising was repressed, leading to an exodus of two million Kurds to Iran and Turkiye.
“When we fled the cities for our lives, we went to Iran. They helped us, they gave us shelter and food,” he said.
The Kurds would not forget that, Barsirini stressed, adding that they could not just “turn against them” now to support the US and Israel.
“I don’t trust (Americans). They are dangerous people,” he said.
The Kurds, an ethnic minority with a distinct culture and language, are rooted in the mountainous region spread across Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
They have long fought for their own homeland, but for decades suffered defeats on the battlefield and massacres in their hometowns.
They make up one of Iran’s most important non-Persian ethnic minority groups.
A week of war has gripped daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan, residents told AFP.
“People are afraid,” said Nasr Al-Din, a 42-year-old policeman who, as a child, lived through the 1991 exodus — “thrown on a donkey’s back with my sister.”
“This generation is different from the older ones” that have seen “seen fighting.”
Now, he said, you could be “sitting down in your home... and all of a sudden a drone hits your house.”
“We may have to go into town or somewhere safer,” said Issa Diayri, 31, a truck driver waiting in a roadside garage, his lorry idle for lack of deliveries from Iran.
- ‘Shouldn’t get involved’ -
Soran, a small town of 3,000 people about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the border, was hit Thursday by a drone that fell in the middle of a street.
There, baker Yussef Ramazan, 42, and his three apprentices, hurriedly made bread before breaking their fast.
But, living so close to the Iranian border, he said “people are afraid to come and buy it.”
He told AFP he did not think it was a good idea “for the Kurdish region to get involved in this war.”
“We are not even an independent country yet. We would like to become one, but we are nothing for now, so we shouldn’t get involved in these situations.”
Across the street, Hajji watched from his empty dry cleaning shop as the road cleared.
Before the war, the town was crowded as evening fell, he said, declining to give his full name.
“But after the drone explosion, no one was here. In five minutes, everyone left the street and no one was out.”
