On Friday morning Turkey and its Syrian proxies bombed the Ain Issa area and the M4 highway, some 35 kilometres from the Syria-Turkey border in northeastern Syria, known to Kurds as Rojava, reported the North Press Agency.
A child was injured in the bombardment. He was brought to a hospital in Raqqa, but died in the intensive care unit, according to David Eubank, the founder of the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian organization operating in the region.
After the bombardment, Turkish drones were seen flying over the area, according to ANHA.
Ain Issa is on the frontlines between Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Under a ceasefire agreement to end Turkey’s offensive into Rojava last October, Russia and the Syrian regime are responsible for securing the area. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi last week accused Russia and the United States of failing in their roles as guarantors of two truces with Turkey and recent research indicates Turkish forces and their proxies have frequently violated the ceasefire, on average more than twice a day.
New data “shows that the Turkish military and Turkish-backed militias in the Syrian National Army (SNA) have been implicated in more than eight hundred violent episodes involving civilians or members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since the Ceasefire Agreement was signed,” wrote Amy Austin Holmes, international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, on Tuesday.
Ankara considers the SDF a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the goal of its offensive last year was to establish a safe zone along the border that could host Syrian refugees now sheltering in Turkey. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Thursday that over 414,000 Syrians have returned home thanks to Turkey’s military operations.
The Turkish government, however, is receiving growing international criticism over its activities across the border.
The United Nations has called on Turkey to rein in its Syrian proxies, which it says may have committed multiple war crimes. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde drew Ankara’s ire this week when she urged Turkey to withdraw from Syria.
Ankara has rejected the UN report as “baseless” and accused the Kurdish forces of being the “true culprits.”
Update: an earlier version of this article had cited a North Press Agency report saying the slain child was 13-years old. Since speaking to the child's father, Rudaw English has learned the boy was 8-year-old Hatem Zeidan
