The Human Rights Organisation Afrin-Syria has urgently appealed to international human rights and humanitarian organisations to pressure the Damascus government to lift its siege on the al-Shahba area and surrounding Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo (Helebce), ANHA reported on Thursday.
The organisation highlighted the possibility of hospitals being out of service and a looming humanitarian catastrophe if the siege continues.
“The siege of the (Fourth Division) of the Syrian regime increases the difficulty of the living conditions of the people of the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods and the Al-Shahba area in the northern countryside of Aleppo, amid a looming humanitarian catastrophe if it continues,” the statement from the organisation reads.
The people have not received any aid, and despite 25 tanks of fuel being sent on a weekly basis, the residents of the regions have not received a single litre, the organisation says. The situation has been compounded by continued power outages and rationing, with operating hours of the generators of artesian wells in the Shahba region reduced to eight hours, despite these wells providing water for more than 55 villages.
Amid information that the two hospitals in Sheikh Maqsoud and Fafin may be out of service in the event of the continuation of the siege imposed on the area, the statement highlights the difficult living conditions in al-Shahba, Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods in Aleppo, as a result of the depletion of fuel and the suffocating siege imposed by the Fourth Division on the region.
Since August 2022, regime forces have controlled the entry of basic supplies such as fuel, flour and humanitarian aid into these areas. “It is appalling to see the Syrian authorities denying tens of thousands of people in Aleppo basic supplies due to political considerations,” said Diana Semaan, Syria researcher at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office. “Civilians live in fear, deprivation and constant uncertainty, once again paying the highest price in this seemingly endless conflict.”
The affected areas, including Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in the north of the city of Aleppo and more than 55 villages in the al-Shahba region, are under the control of the Autonomous Administration, and the regime has imposed a siege on them. The statement calls on the Syrian government to allow the entry of fuel, infant formula, medicines and other necessary living necessities for thousands of displaced people from Afrin (Efrîn) and the locals in these areas, as well as to deal with the residents of these areas as Syrian citizens and to carry out its duties stipulated in the Syrian constitution.
