In the shadow of the Gaza conflict, Turkish President Erdoğan launched massive attacks in northern Syria.
Sozdar Ali looks tired. “This afternoon my children are finally sleeping”, he says in a telephone conversation with “Presse”. “But it’s difficult at night. The children are stressed and cannot sleep because of the loud explosions.” Sozdar Ali lives in Qamishli, in northern Syria. And the city and its surroundings have been the target of heavy Turkish airstrikes in recent days. “The situation here is terrible,” complains the woman who works as a spokeswoman for the Kurdish Red Crescent. “The psychological situation of people here is very bad. Children, in particular, suffer.”
The world is currently watching with horror the war between Israel and Hamas and the devastating situation in the Gaza Strip. But in the shadow of this conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is waging his own war – against the self-rule that the Kurds have established with the Arabs and other groups in northern Syria. The Turkish military has launched repeated attacks here for years and is occupying parts of the area along with allied Islamic militias. But now the conflict has intensified – with a new wave of Turkish air strikes hitting the region around Christmas. “A hospital in the city of Kobane was also bombed,” says Sozdar Ali. “The only oxygen production factory in Qamishli was also hit. She took care of the hospitals here,” says the Kurdish Red Crescent spokeswoman.