Syrian Government imposes new restraints on Kurdish villages in northern Aleppo

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Syrian Government-linked military forces have imposed an embargo on Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Aleppo near Tal Rifaat since Nov. 20 in order to gain concessions from Kurdish forces, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports.

Moreover, the local Hawar News Agency (ANHA) reports that the blockade also includes the Kurdish controlled neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in Aleppo.

“On November 20, the regime forces and the 4th Division imposed a siege on northern Aleppo countryside, which is controlled by the Kurdish councils, where public places lost their allocations and fuel reserves,” SOHR reported.

As a result, most schools were closed and public transportation was paralyzed in villages and towns of the northern Aleppo countryside.

The area around Tal Rifaat also hosts a large number of civilians displaced from Afrin, a northwestern Syrian-Kurdish region that Türkiye (Turkey) and its proxy Syrian militants invaded in 2018.

Health centres and hospitals announced that they would stop operating in the coming days, while Afrin Hospital continues to receive emergency medical cases after most of the equipment has been shut down.

Furthermore, the blockade has caused a complete electricity blackout, and municipal workers have stopped working as a result of the interruption to transportation. The process of distributing water to the residents through containers is in real danger, after the reserve stock runs out.

Read More: Two Kurdish children die in Aleppo due to Syrian government siege

The Syrian Government’s Fourth Division controls the only crossing between Aleppo province and its northern countryside, and it often blocks the entry of diesel, gasoline, and other necessities into neighborhoods and villages held by Kurdish forces in Aleppo, causing electricity blackouts and shortages of medicine.