Kidney problems on the rise in Rojava, but medicine and treatment are hard to find

QAMISHLI, Syria — Medicine and treatment for kidney failure and related diseases are hard to come by in northeast Syria (Rojava), Rudaw has been told. 

Shahin Sheikhmus, 19, has kidney failure and has to go for dialysis three times a week, but treatment is not available at hospitals under the control of Kurdish authorities, forcing him to go to a regime-controlled hospital. 

"We are in a difficult situation, I want to get rid of this suffering," he told Rudaw. 
 
Dialysis is free of charge, but people often have to buy medicine on the black market - and transplants are too costly for many. 

"A kidney transplant costs $20,000. I can’t afford it," said Shahin's father Abdulrazaq. 

Kidney diseases are an increasing problem in Rojava, with the physicians union saying kidney problems have risen by 20 percent in recent years. 

"Eighty percent of the medicines are imported from Turkey. 20 percent is imported from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq. Frankly speaking, they're expensive," said pharmacist Mohammed Yousif. 

Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed