The article below originally appeared in RT on January 13th, 2016.
Turkey has established a strict blockade of the Kurdish regions in Syria surrounded by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), depriving Syrian Kurds of essential supplies and shooting people trying to enter Turkey from Syria, RT’s Murad Gazdiev reports.
Turkish Blockade on Syrian Kurds
The Turkish border with the Kurdish territories in the northern Syria, which stretches for 750 kilometers, has been fitted with two layers of barbed wire, a huge minefield, and sniper towers at regular intervals. It has only two border crossings that are closed most of the time.
“They [Turks] do not let anything across: neither food, nor humanitarian aid, nor medicine. They only let returning refugees cross,” Hadir Mustafa, the head of one of the border crossings on the Syrian side, told RT.
“The Turkish soldiers do not cooperate, they are aggressive and hostile. They push, hit people and tell them to never come back,” he added.
Murad Gazdiev reported from the border that Turkish border guards had refused to let an ambulance cross the border that was transporting a man critically injured in a terrorist act in a nearby Syrian Kurdish town, saying they needed to receive permission from Turkish provincial authorities first.
Targeting Civilians
Apart from maintaining the blockade, Turkish snipers on towers also target civilians on the Syrian side. They recently shot and killed a Kurdish schoolboy, who was trying to cross the border in order to find work in Turkey.
“The Turks shot him 70 meters from the border, on the Syrian side. I saw the place myself,” the boy’s father told RT.
On Sunday, a 16-year-old girl was also shot dead as she was trying to get to Turkey from Kurdish territories in Syria, while others from her group were injured and had to be treated for gunshot wounds.
The Turkish blockade of Syrian Kurdistan is “total,” Gazdiev reports citing the locals.
“The large part of what we grow here we throw away because we can’t sell it outside,” a Kurdish fruit and vegetable seller named Beze told RT, adding that it is easier to smuggle goods through IS-controlled territories that to transport them through the Turkish border.
“Things that do not grow here also have to be smuggled in. By the time they get here they cost ten times as much,” Beze added.
At the same time, the Turkish border with jihadist-controlled territories in Syria remains open. Weapons, fighters and goods flow freely through checkpoints manned by Islamic militants.
[Read more at RT]
