“The 29-truck convoy is in Afrin, delivering aid enough for 50,000 people including food, winter clothes, hygiene kits, mattresses, blankets, medical supplies and water materials,” tweeted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria.
The ICRC has been trying “for many weeks” to bring aid to the Kurdish canton, under bombardment by Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies.
The aid delivery was a joint effort of the ICRC with the Syrian Red Crescent and will also serve people in the Tall Rifat area, north of Aleppo.
Local media reported the aid convoy came under attack. Turkish forces and Syrian militias “targeted” the convoy in a village in the northeastern Shira district of the canton, ANHA reported.
Neither the ICRC nor the Syrian Red Crescent, however, reported their convoy coming under attack.
A Kurdish official, Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of the foreign affairs committee for Rojava’s Jazira canton, confirmed the aid convoy “carrying food and health aid and winter blankets… arrived in the city of Afrin today.”
Turkey launched its Operation Olive Branch on Afrin on January 20, describing it as a counter-terror operation. Ankara alleges the Kurdish groups, the armed YPG and the political party PYD, are branches of the banned PKK. The YPG and PYD deny the charge.
The YPG have put up strong defence against the attacking Turkish forces, who have taken control of some 22 percent of the canton – including 75 villages and one town, Bulbul – as of March 1, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Turkish forces made a significant advance this week, taking control of the entire border area. Turkey now controls 250 kilometres of border from Jarablus, on the western shore of the Euphrates River, to northern Idlib province. Turkey’s allied Syrian militias control territories in northern Aleppo province to the east of Afrin. And Turkey has established observation posts along Afrin’s southern borders in Idlib.
Health officials in the Kurdish canton stated earlier this week that 192 civilians had been killed in the military operation so far, including women and children, and another 574 civilians have been wounded.
The Observatory has documented the deaths of 139 civilians, and hundreds more injured “some of them have permanent disabilities.”
Turkey has welcomed the UN Security Council’s 30-day humanitarian ceasefire, but said it would not apply to its Afrin offensive, which Ankara has framed as a counter-terror operation.
The YPG have stated they will abide by the ceasefire, but reserve the right to act in self-defence.
According to UN figures, 323,000 people are living in Afrin and nearby areas under Kurdish control. Of them, 192,000 are in need of humanitarian aid and 125,000 are IDPs displaced from other parts of Syria.
