The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor, reported that a large fire broke out at the Suwaydiya gas station in the countryside of Derik (al-Malikiyah) in Hasaka province, after a Turkish drone struck the site.
“Drinking water was cut off from all the cities, villages, and towns of northern Hasaka as a result of targeting electrical stations that supply water wells,” the monitor said, adding that a “complete power outage” has hit the region.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) blasted Ankara for the “crimes” of targeting Rojava’s infrastructure, stressing that the livelihoods of civilians in the region are being exposed to danger.
“Over the past two days, the Turkish occupation has targeted key energy and electricity facilities, as well as grain storage warehouses and silos and firefighting crews, using warplanes and drones. These aggressions have extended to the homes of civilians, their farms, and sources of their daily sustenance,” the SDF said in a statement on Sunday.
On Saturday, the Turkish military began carrying out several strikes against Rojava, as well as alleged PKK targets in the Kurdistan Region.
The strikes were in retaliation to a deadly PKK attack on a Turkish military base in the Kurdistan Region, in which nine Turkish soldiers were reported dead by the defense ministry.
The SDF stated that Ankara’s strikes “constitute blatant and deliberate war crimes aimed at causing maximum harm to the lives of civilians, instilling fear, and inflicting suffering on their daily existence.”
Turkey has carried out several air and ground operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Rojava, which comprises the backbone of the US-backed SDF but Turkey alleges is the Syrian front for the PKK.
After the PKK killed 12 soldiers in the Kurdistan Region last December, Turkey responded by pounding critical infrastructure in northeast Syria.
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