The Kurdish Red Crescent has confirmed that three of their paramedics, who had disappeared on October 13 near Suluk, southeast of the border town Gire Spi (Tel Abyad), are dead. “Their bodies were found dumped in the sewer. Reports indicate that Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sharqiya was responsible for what is widely regarded as a ‘field execution’ targeting health workers,” reported the Rojava Information Centre on Saturday morning.
The three paramedics have been identified as Media Bouzan, Hafin Khalil Ibrahim, and Mohamed Bouzan Sidi.
Turkey launched the land invasion of its Operation Peace Spring on October 9 with the goal of pushing Kurdish forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) away from the border and establishing a “safe zone” where some one to two million Syrian refugees now living in Turkey could be resettled.
The Turkish army is using Syrian militia groups as their boots on the ground, but these men, who often film their own violations, have been accused of multiple atrocities that American officials admit could constitute war crimes and for which Turkey would be culpable.
On Friday the all-women branch of the Kurdish forces, the YPJ, appealed for international assistance to help one of their fighters who was captured alive by the Syrian militias. Earlier in the week, video of militia men stepping on the body of a killed female fighter was shared on social media. And in the early days of the military campaign, a senior politician and women’s rights campaigner appears to have been summarily executed by the militias.
American officials have said these incidents could be war crimes.
“I've seen the reports as well. We’re trying to monitor them. They are horrible and, if accurate, I assume that they are accurate, they would be war crimes, as best as I know the law of land warfare. So I think all of those needs to be followed up on. I think those responsible should be held accountable – in many cases it would be the government of Turkey should be held accountable for this because we cannot allow those things to happen,” US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in an interview with CNN, aired on Tuesday.
Turkey's presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin has said they "will investigate alleged war crimes," but reiterated Ankara's stance that the Kurdish forces are a terror organization.
An estimated 300,000 people have been displaced by Turkey’s offensive.
The Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC), which is the primary medical aid agency on the ground after international organizations pulled their staff out of northern Syria a week after the crisis began citing insecurity, says four of their staff have been killed and five injured, “all of whom are targeted directly.”
The fourth health worker killed was paramedic Hail al-Saleh who died on October 17 of wounds sustained in shelling of a medical point near Sari Kani three days earlier.
“Targeting health personnel and centers according to the international humanitarian law is a war crime, and the criminal must be punished,” the KRC said in a statement Friday evening.
The KRC has documented multiple attacks on or near health facilities, hospitals, trauma stations, and ambulances. On October 11, Roj Hospital in Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad National Hospital were knocked out of service “after deliberate targeting of the surrounding area of both hospitals,” the aid agency reported.
International medical organization Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), which was supporting the Tel Abyad hospital as one of several projects in northern Syria, joined other aid agencies in pulling out of the area. “Given the numerous groups fighting on different sides of the conflict, MSF can no longer guarantee the safety of our Syrian and international staff,” the organization announced on October 15.
On October 12, a KRC trauma stabilization point south of Sari Kani was targeted, injuring an ambulance driver and damaging ambulances, the group reported.
Hospitals in Kobane and Tel Tamr at times have also been temporarily out of service because of the proximity of clashes and the threat to staff and patients.
Under pressure, hospitals were overwhelmed by patients suffering from shrapnel wounds and burns, including from suspected banned weapons.
Convoys of ambulances and civilians trying to evacuate wounded persons from Sari Kani last week came under fire and had to retreat before finally able to reach their destination.
Parts of the main east-west highway across northern Syria, the M4, have been closed because of the military operation. “As a result, aid transportation is being done through alternate routes, however these do not allow for the same volume of supplies to be transported given the condition of the roads,” the United Nations’ humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) said in its most recent update, as of October 24.
OCHA notes that hospitals are understaffed and overwhelmed, with most health facilities “only partially functioning.”
Eight days after the conflict began, the United States brokered a five-day pause in Turkey’s operation to give Kurdish forces time to pull back from the border around Gire Spi (Tel Abyad) and Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain). Mere hours before that deal was set to expire, Turkey and Russia made another deal to assume control over the border and ordering the Kurdish forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to pull back to a depth of 30 kilometres. The SDF was not a party to that agreement and is in talks with Russia.
Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday morning that the Kurdish withdrawal is “going as planned.”
