The Kurdish Red Crescent (Heyva Sor a Kurd) is continuing its efforts to evacuate wounded people from the besieged neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah in Aleppo via the town of Deir Hafer. A similar aid mission had been blocked the previous day despite coordination with the relevant authorities.
On Saturday morning, the organization’s emergency services gathered at the junction to the city of Tabqa to make another attempt to evacuate the wounded from the two neighborhoods. The route lies on a dividing line between areas controlled by the Syrian transitional government and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES).
The co-chair of Heyva Sor a Kurd, Dilgeş Îsa, told the ANHA news agency that the evacuation was originally scheduled to take place on Friday evening. “We reached Deir Hafer at 6 p.m., where the handover of the injured was to take place,” Îsa said. “Despite prior arrangements with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross, we were informed at short notice that the handover could not take place.”
According to Îsa, the organization was fully operational, but the termination of the operation had serious consequences; four seriously injured people died because medical care could no longer be provided. “The only hospital in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, the Khaled Fajr Hospital, was deliberately attacked. There is no longer any functioning medical infrastructure there. This is a humanitarian disaster,” said Îsa.
According to the organization, the evacuation was blocked by troops of the Syrian transitional government, who control access via Deir Hafer. Îsa reaffirmed the Kurdish Red Crescent’s willingness to continue the evacuations: “We act according to humanitarian principles in accordance with international law. Our doors are open to any form of coordination.”
At the same time, Îsa called on both the transitional government in Damascus and international aid organizations to facilitate a solution to rescue more injured people. “We hope that today’s attempt will be successful. Every minute lost costs lives. The people in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah are living in catastrophic conditions,” he emphasized.