As Turkish-backed mercenaries and ISIS and HTS militias continue their attacks on Rojava, Kobanê is currently besieged from all three sides. Neither medicines nor basic necessities such as water, electricity, and food are allowed into the city for the sick and wounded. Speaking to ANF, medical teams stated that a serious humanitarian crisis will occur should the siege continue.
Dr. Ehmed Mehmûd Kinco, who works at Kobanê Hospital, stated that they are going through an extremely difficult period and that the relevant parties must act immediately: “This siege is becoming more severe with each passing day. Our need for medicine is constantly increasing. Due to the siege, there are very few medicines left at Kobanê Hospital. We are facing great difficulties right now. Medicines are almost completely depleted, and what remains is extremely limited.”
Ehmed remarked that the population of Kobanê is steadily increasing with the arrival of forcibly displaced persons from other regions, and continued:
“There is a possibility that all of our medicines will run out within the next week. Only IV fluids will remain. We are calling on everyone concerned to act immediately for Kobanê. As doctors, we are struggling, but our medicines are running out. Still, we will stand by our people to the very end. We will remain in solidarity with our people and call for this siege to end.”
Narîn Ebdî Mistefa, a mother of three children who all suffer from asthma and who regularly comes to the hospital to provide them with oxygen, said that oxygen devices do not work in homes due to power outages. She stated: “I am at the hospital to get oxygen for my children. But medicines are very scarce. Doctors give my children medicine, yet there is nothing we can find outside. It cannot be supplied at the hospital either. At the same time, there is no fuel—especially diesel—and my home is very far away; all vehicles inside the city have been stopped. We are facing a major humanitarian crisis.”
Narîn Ebdî Mistefa added that many of the medicines prescribed by doctors for her children cannot be found due to the siege, saying: “The relevant parties must turn their attention to Kobanê where all basic supplies for life have been exhausted. We are facing an enormous catastrophe.”