Mapping aid to Kurds & displaced Arabs in Jinderes, the worst affected area in Syria
While the UN waited for permission from Damascus to use the Bab al-Salama border crossing with access to the most affected areas in Syria, Jinderes, southern Afrin, a first convoy of the Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF) from Erbil entered on February 10. While Erbil is much further away from the Bab al-Salama border crossing than the UN offices in Gaziantep. Gaziantep is just an hour's drive from the Bab al-Salama border crossing. To give you an idea, the distance from Gaziantep to Kilis is 56 km, while the distance from Erbil to Kilis is 780 km.
The first BCF convoy arrived after first distributing aid in southeastern Turkey. The UN waited for Bashar al-Assad to agree to use these crossings, while Assad has no control over these crossings into opposition-held (SNA) areas in northern and northwestern Syria, the two main ones being Bab al- Salama between Kilis and Azaz and the al-Hamam border crossing, between Reyhanli and Jinderes, southern Afrin.
The Barzani Charity Foundation did not wait for Assad to approve the delivery of aid to the north. They went in with 5 convoys, so until 17 February. Since then, more convoys have come in. The Foundation has now opened an office in Afrin.
We ourselves were in northeastern Syria doing field research when the earthquake occurred, on the countryside of Mabrouka, Hasaka province, and then moved on to Tal Abyad. I have spent many days of fieldwork in Afrin in the last two years, the last time was 9 days in October 2022.
We went from Tal Abyad in northern Syria to Akcakale, the part of the town that is in Turkey, and from there to Sanliurfa and Gaziantep. The opposition-controlled areas of northwestern Syria can only be reached from Tal Abyad via Turkey, as one would have to pass through the SDF-controlled area of Kobani/Manbij, where regime's troops are also present.
On February 13, we went to the Bab al-Salama border crossing and saw 3 trucks with Turkish aid about to enter northern Syria and the first car we saw in Syria, near Azaz, was a car from the Barzani Charity Foundation.
The next day in Afrin City we saw a convoy of trucks from the Barzani Charity Foundation in Afrin City.
A few days later we came across 5 BCF ambulances and asked if we could ask some questions:
Interview in English
Longer interview
Hello, could you first introduce yourself?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Rena in Syria to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.