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Syria
Administration offices at the Semalka border crossing in northeast Syria. Photo: Semalka border authority
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Rojava authorities announced Saturday they will reopen the Semalka-Fishkhabur border with the Kurdistan Region for select groups of people on Monday, several days after it was closed due to disputes with Erbil.
The administration of the Semalka crossing said the border will be open to newly-married women who need to do paperwork, patients, merchants, and people with European citizenship or residency.
“The patients and brides should report to the visa office in Qamishli to do their travel procedures,” the statement read. The border will be open for these groups just three days a week: Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays.
Last week, the border was shut to some travelers, exempting the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, and Rojava border officials claimed that authorities on the Kurdistan Region’s Fishkhabur side were collecting information from travelers. “This is a pure intelligence form,” the Semalka administration said of the paperwork being demanded on the other side of the border.
The Semalka administration also complained that emergency cases, such as people seeking medical treatment, have to wait for two days to receive entry permission from the Fishkhabur side.
Home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people, Rojava has depended on the Semalka border crossing for aid deliveries. The border was closed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) due to political rifts with the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Rojava, but it was opened in 2016 in order to allow humanitarian goods, medicine, and food across.
Hundreds of families who wanted to enter the Kurdistan Region were turned back by Rojava authorities on Saturday. They said they had been told the border would be open.
“They tell us that the crossing is closed. It was supposed to reopen today, so we came here. We came on Wednesday, but they told us that it would reopen on Saturday,” Ismet from Qamishli told Rudaw. He said he wants to visit his children in the Kurdistan Region.
“The decision only affects the poor,’ said Abdulqadir Zilfo who lives in Sulaimani but has visited relatives in Rojava.
Additional reporting by Viviyan Fetah
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