As the online portal Middle East Eye (MEE) reported on Tuesday, citing Syrian sources and British MPs, Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad’s troops launched an attack on Marea, a town 35 kilometers north of Aleppo – right as residents tried to get under collapsed buildings to rescue victims.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly condemned the Assad government for the “completely unacceptable bombing”, which corresponds to a “longstanding pattern of behavior by the Assad regime”. “We will try to prevent behavior like this again through continued sanctions in cooperation with international partners,” he said, according to the Sky News television network.
British Conservative MP and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns, called the attack a “really callous and abhorrent attack” and opportunism. The goal is to “attack and destroy the moderate opposition,” the conservatives told MPs. The civil protection organization White Helmets, run by the opposition in the rebel areas in the northwest, had previously written in a letter to diplomats urging diplomats to put pressure on Damascus “to ensure that there are no bombing raids in the affected areas”.
Report on Turkish attacks on Kurdish areas
As the ZDF reported in the night, after the earthquake in the region, Turkey is said to have continued air raids on areas in northern Syria mainly inhabited by Kurds. A helper from the Kurdish Red Crescent organization told the German broadcaster that there had been further bombardments in the area badly hit by the quake: “We had aftershocks again last night, and yet Turkish airstrikes continued to be flown,” Fee Baumann was quoted as saying .
The Middle East expert from the Society for Threatened Peoples, Kamal Sido, also confirmed the information to ZDF. During the night of Tuesday, Turkey attacked the area around Tall Rifaat, which was affected by the earthquake, where Kurdish refugees from the Afrin region found refuge. “It is scandalous that a NATO country willfully aggravates a humanitarian catastrophe. There is not a word of criticism from other NATO countries,” said Sido.
Four dead from rocket fire
The women’s combat groups of the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPJ) also confirmed on Twitter that the city of Tall Rifaat had been shelled by Turkish artillery. “The earthquake caused buildings to collapse and forced people to stay outside. Shortly after the earthquake, Turkey and its allied mercenaries shelled the area with heavy weapons,” the tweet said.
Four people were injured, some seriously, by a Turkish missile, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They are Kurdish-backed members of the Manbij Military Council who control the area.
El-Gawhary (ORF) on the situation in Syria
ORF correspondent for the Arab region, Karim El-Gawhary, talks about the difficult circumstances surrounding the support for the earthquake victims in Syria.
Political situation makes help difficult
Monday’s earthquake disaster hit areas under various control in northern Syria. The political situation makes the transport of relief supplies and the rescue operations even more difficult. There is a single open border crossing between Turkey and Syria, Bab al-Hawa. The delivery of humanitarian aid there is being delayed due to road damage, UN sources said. Sources in the border crossing area said some main roads leading to the border suffered cracks or other damage from the tremors.
In recent years, the Syrian government and its ally Russia have gradually scaled back a corresponding UN aid mechanism with several transitions. The reason for this is that large parts of the northern Syrian side of the border are in the hands of rebels and Damascus wants to recapture them. Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bassam Sabbagh on Tuesday reiterated that humanitarian aid should flow inside Syria through government-controlled areas. Further border crossings from rebel areas into Turkey should not be authorized.
The regime in Damascus submitted an application for disaster relief to the EU. The request for help includes a long list of common disaster protection items, Commissioner Janez Lenarcic, responsible for EU crisis management, said at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday. According to this, Syria is asking about medicines, food and medical equipment. “I encourage EU states to respond to the request,” said Lenarcic.
