‘River’ of Kurds flee Syria for Iraq
Syrian rebels battling Kurdish militias for control of territory
A human “river” of tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds has begun flowing into neighbouring Iraq to escape jihadist violence, United Nations officials warned Sunday.
The UN’s refugee agency said that around 17,000 Syrian Kurds had come across the border since Thursday, in what it described as a “major exodus” that was stretching the ability of Iraqi refugee camps to cope.
The Kurds, a minority group who make up around 10 per cent of Syria’s population, have largely stayed out of the ongoing conflict, with government forces opting to withdraw entirely from Kurdish-dominated northeastern Syria rather than fighting yet another front in the civil war.
Clashes have escalated in recent months between Kurdish militias and anti-government jihadist groups, for whom the Kurdish areas offer a conduit to fellow militants in Iraq. Earlier this month, Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish area, which shares a border with northeast Syria, threatened to intervene if Kurds came under further attack.
Barzani, whose own well-armed forces fought for independence against Saddam Hussein, said that if Kurds were “under threat of death and terrorism” then Iraqi Kurdistan would be “prepared to defend them.”
An estimated 154,000 Syrian refugees are already registered in Iraq. The latest influx appears to have been caused by the building of a new pontoon bridge over the Tigris.
“UN refugee agency staff at Sahela report what appears like a river of people coming towards the border,” said Claire Bourgeois, the UNHCR’s Iraq representative, referring to a border crossing in north Iraq.
“We are witnessing a major exodus from Syria over the past few days unlike anything we have witnessed entering Iraq previously.”
The UN said it was working with the government in Iraqi Kurdistan to establish a camp to accommodate the new rivals, one of the biggest single waves of refugees since the Syrian conflict started.
It came as UN chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus Sunday on a long-delayed mission to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use.
Led by a Swedish arms expert, Aake Sellstroem, the team is expected to investigate a site at Khan al-Assal, near the contested northern city of Aleppo. The Syrian government says rebels used chemical weapons there in March, killing at least 26 people, while rebel commanders say it was the work of regime forces. Khan alAssal has since fallen into rebel control, and while the Syrian opposition has promised to allow the UN team access to the area, there are doubts about how free the team will be to go about its work. Damascus originally said it would allow the UN probe in last March but insisted it focus solely on Khan al-Assal.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to continue fighting Sunday, saying that he was “determined to confront terrorism and eradicate it.”
Recent months have seen the tide of conflict turn in Assad’s favour, with the growing involvement of jihadist groups on the rebel side allowing him to portray himself as a champion against extremism.