Attacks on Rojava by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and affiliated groups backed by the Turkish state are continuing. Many Kurds, including children, have been killed in the attacks, which persist despite growing public outrage.
As a result of the assaults targeting Kurdish regions, access to water, electricity, food, and fuel for heating has become impossible, particularly in the besieged city of Kobanê, triggering a severe humanitarian crisis.
Diren Can Kaya, Co-Chair of the Aksaray Branch of the Health and Social Service Workers’ Union (SES), spoke to ANF about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Rojava.
Kaya said that groups affiliated with HTS under the Syrian interim administration initially launched attacks against Alawite and Druze communities before turning toward genocidal assaults against Kurds. He said: “Reports in the media have shown that these groups abduct women, take children hostage, torture the dead, and trample on human dignity. By attacking hospitals and health workers, they are also violating the Geneva Conventions, to which we are a party.
Kaya said: “It is known that this war aims to sabotage the ‘Democratic Society and Peace Process’ and to destroy the model of coexistence that emerged with the Rojava Revolution, which represents the collective will for shared life and lasting peace across the region.
Targeting water resources and health facilities in a way that endangers public health can be interpreted as a genocidal policy aimed at altering the demographic structure.”
Health is more than the absence of illness
Kaya said that what is taking place violates the Geneva Conventions and continued as follows: “The Geneva Conventions clearly define the targeting of both civilian and military medical teams as a war crime. There are many reasons why groups devoid of moral and political values target health institutions. However, as I have already stated, in this war waged to alter the demographic structure, the deliberate targeting of hospitals and facilities holding medical supplies not only causes material damage by rendering medical equipment unusable, but also seeks to force submission and displacement by blocking access to medicine for a population that includes people with chronic illnesses and families with young children in need of medical care.
It is not only health institutions that are being targeted. Water resources, heating, shelter, as well as telephone and internet shutdowns are all directly related to health. War creates conditions of ill health, because health is not merely the absence of disease or disability; it is a state of complete physical, mental, social, and political well-being.”
They aim to break the will of the people
Diren Kaya said the genocidal attacks are being deliberately planned to break the will of the people. Kaya said: “The groups waging a genocidal war are resorting to vile methods to crush the collective will of the peoples and to alter the demographic structure. They disregard the rules of war and violate the ceasefire agreement, trapping the peoples of Rojava between forced displacement and death. The entire world sees these murderous groups. What must be understood, however, is that it is not only Rojava that is under threat, but all of humanity.”
A life corridor must be opened to Rojava
Diren Can Kaya said that health professional organizations in Turkey have come together in response to the developments in Rojava and that the SES has issued a call to the Ministry of Health. He said a life corridor must be opened without delay and continued:
“As SES, our positions in previous periods are well known to the public. In this period as well, we would like to state that consultations and discussions on methods and paths forward have begun with labor and professional organizations that are friendly institutions of our union. In addition, our Central Executive Committee has issued a call to the Ministry of Health, conveying that, if necessary, our lists of volunteers can be shared with the relevant parties.”
Kaya said they are once again renewing their call, through the media, to all institutions and organizations in which health and social service professionals are organized worldwide, particularly by the World Health Organization. Kaya also said: “Let us all say stop to the war together. Let us become the voice of the peoples of Rojava for the opening of a life corridor, and act with an awareness of our professional and humanitarian responsibilities. Let us raise the call for a life corridor more loudly.”