At least 59 people have been killed by Turkish airstrikes focused mainly on northeastern Syria
Thousands of Kurds demonstrated today in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, protesting recent Turkish airstrikes in the region controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.
For a week, Ankara has been waging a military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Iraq, which Turkish authorities blame for the Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed six people. The Kurdish forces deny any involvement in this case.
At least 59 people have been killed in Turkish airstrikes focused mainly on northeastern Syria: 35 Kurdish fighters, 23 Syrian soldiers and a journalist for a Kurdish news agency, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based non-governmental organization with a wide network. sources in Syria.
Today in Qamisli, Hasaka province, thousands of protesters denounced the Turkish strikes and Ankara’s threats to launch a ground operation in the area, according to an AFP photojournalist. Protesters held Kurdish flags and pictures of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s historic leader who is jailed in Turkey, while chanting slogans against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“They will not bend the will of the Kurdish people (…) we will not abandon our historical lands,” said one protester, 49-year-old Shiham Suleiman.
“We are victims of extermination. How long will we die while the rest of the world watches?’ asked another, 55-year-old Salah el-Din Hamou.
From 2016 to 2019, Turkey conducted three operations in northern Syria against Kurdish militias and organizations. Ankara reiterates that it wants to establish a 30km deep “security zone” along Turkey’s southern border.
RES-EMP
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