Politics

Local officials report 17 new cases of COVID-19 in northeast Syria

A representative for the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (AANES) announced on Thursday that health workers had identified 17 new cases of the coronavirus in northeast Syria.

middle east Syria Rojava COVID-19 Coronavirus

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A representative of the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (AANES) announced on Thursday that health workers had identified 17 new cases of the coronavirus in northeast Syria.

International experts have long warned that millions of displaced and otherwise vulnerable civilians in the area, so far relatively unaffected by the global pandemic, are at great risk if significant outbreaks of the highly-contagious disease begin to occur. 

“There are 17 new cases of coronavirus in North and East Syria, Ciwan Mustafa of the AANES Health Bureau confirms,” the Syria-based Rojava Information Centre (RIC) wrote in a tweet. “With 11 cases in Jazira (Hasakah province), 3 in Deir-ez-Zor and 3 in Raqqa, there are now cases in all three regions of NES (Northeast Syria), as the disease spreads from Syrian government-held areas.”  

Mark Lowcock, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said during a Security Council briefing on Wednesday that COVID-19 figures in Syria are still low when compared to other countries.     

“The number of confirmed cases remains in the hundreds – so still a relatively low level,” he said, adding, “The true number of cases is certainly higher; limited testing capacity, compared to what is available in neighbouring countries, and a reluctance, among some people, to acknowledge an infection masks the real scale of the outbreak.”   

He continued, explaining that UN agencies are “also helping tackle COVID-19 in Syria. The problem is now country-wide: cases have now been confirmed in all but one of Syria’s governorates. UN staff working in Syria are also struck by the disease.”

Raperin Hassan, who co-chairs the AANES Health Bureau with the other official who made the announcement, told Kurdistan 24 on Monday there were a total of 8 COVID-19 cases at the time in northeast Syria, but that it “might increase.”   
 
Added to the most recent numbers announced, this brings the number of total known cases to 25.
 
On Wednesday, local authorities announced a ten-day quarantine to stop the spread of the virus. “Travel between Jazira and other regions of North and East Syria is restricted, a curfew is in place, and gatherings are banned,” according to RIC. 
 
The local administration in northeast Syria faces huge humanitarian challenges due to the shutdown of the only UN crossing to the northeast, which has led to various shortages, notably in medicine and medical supplies.
 
In December, Russia and China both vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have kept the al-Yarubiya UN border crossing open, which connects the area eastward to Iraq. As a result, this crossing was closed on Jan. 10 and remains blocked. 
 
Germany and Belgium in early July proposed to reopen al-Yarubiya in the draft of a Security Council resolution, but this demand was removed due to Russian pressure. 
 
Furthermore, Turkey has been regularly cutting the water supply to the northeast by cutting off the Allouk water station, which Turkey and its proxy militias have controlled since their 2019 October invasion targeting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
 
According to an assessment published by the NGO Reach on June 30, water shortages in “Al-Hasakeh, Deir-ez-Zor, and ArRaqqa governorates continued to hinder basic hygiene precautions and displaced populations living in camps and informal settlements remained at heightened risk of COVID19.”
 
Thomas McClure, a Syria-based researcher at the RIC, told Kurdistan 24 last week, “The new flare up of cases in northeast Syria is extremely serious due to the fact that these individuals are not related to each other. This indicates that there has been some spread of the virus.” 

 

“The worry is that the virus will now continue to spread through closely tight communities full of internally displaced people (IDPs), or even into IDP camps or under detention facilities, or al-Hol Camp.” 

On Saturday, a suspected first case was identified within the infamous al-Hol Camp, run by the SDF and presently holding roughly 65,000 individuals, mostly women and children. This includes nearly 11,000 foreign women with alleged ties to the so-called Islamic State.

Health workers then carried out a coronavirus test, which came back negative.

Editing by John J. Catherine

Wladimir van Wilgenburg ,