Blast kills dozens in Kurdish town
At least 37 people died when a truck filled with explosives was detonated in Qamishli
BEIRUT— Dozens of people in a Kurdish-controlled town in northeastern Syria died after an explosion on Wednesday, while a humanitarian crisis in the rebel-held sections of Aleppo, a city in the country’s northwest, intensified.
Atruck loaded with explosives blew up on the western edge of the Kurdish-controlled town, Qamishli, on Wednesday morning. There were reports of a second blast a short while later, though the cause was not clear. At least 37 people were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain.
“It was so disturbing,” Dawood Dawood, a resident of Qamishli and an official with the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said via Viber, a messaging app. “I saw burned cars, at least 10 damaged buildings.”
Dawood said he had rushed to the scene after the truck attack, which occurred on a highway near a Kurdish police station. Dawood said he thought the second explosion may have been set off by the first.
“It was a busy road,” he said. “There were many cars, and there were generators that feed the area with power; this is why the damage and death toll were so high.”
Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, issued a statement calling the attacker a martyr, but it stopped short of directly claiming responsibility. The statement made reference to only one explosion.
Qamishli is a centre of activity for Rojava, an enclave that Kurds began carving out in 2012, early in the Syrian civil war, and of the Democratic Union Party, which has gotten arms, equipment and training from the United States, and some smaller Kurdish parties. Turkey considers the Democratic Union Party to be a front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant group that has waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades.
A humanitarian crisis has also been intensifying in Aleppo, a large city that is divided between rebel and government forces.
UNICEF said on Tuesday that four hospitals in the eastern section of the city, as well as a blood bank, had been hit by airstrikes over the weekend, “disrupting key life-saving health services for up to 300,000 civilians.”
“It was so disturbing. I saw burned cars, at least 10 damaged buildings.” DAWOOD DAWOOD RESIDENT OF QAMISHLI AND AN OFFICIAL WITH THE ASSYRIAN DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION
A 2-day-old baby in an incubator died from disruptions to his oxygen supply as a result of airstrikes that damaged a UNICEF-supported hospital, which was reportedly struck twice in less than 12 hours.
“All hospitals hit over the 48-hour-period are in the Al Shaar neighbourhood, a location with several health facilities in close vicinity to one another,” UNICEF said.
“These hospitals make up half of all health facilities operating in the area.”
At least 60 per cent of public hospitals in the country have closed or are only partly functional.
In the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo, at least six more people died in airstrikes Wednesday, according to a medical group operating in the area. More than 50 civilians were killed on Monday, according to the White Helmets, a rescue group operating in rebel areas.
Forces loyal to Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, control most of the western part of the city.
Food is in short supply, and Stephen O’Brien, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, warned recently that basic necessities were running out. The United Nations has backed calls for ceasefires in the air raids on Aleppo.
“Shops are almost empty from food, prices of bread are soaring, there is no fuel, electricity has become rare and expensive,” said Dr. Omar Abu al-Ezz, who works at a hospital in rebel-held Aleppo that is supported by the Syrian American Medical Society. “Sometimes hospitals are obliged to do amputations for the wounded due to scarcity of medication.”
Zaher Azzaher, an Aleppo resident and activist, said via Facebook Messenger: “The siege in Aleppo is getting worst day after day, the number of people here are decreasing, the feeling of boredom is growing.” He added, “There’s nothing left in Aleppo but air.”