Convoy carrying meals and gas reaches Kurdish-majority city, also referred to as Kobane, in Aleppo province.
A United Nations convoy carrying “life-saving” support has arrived within the Kurdish-majority city of Ain al-Arab in northern Syria as a ceasefire settlement between the Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continues to carry.
The convoy’s arrival in Ain al-Arab, also referred to as Kobane, on Sunday got here amid rising considerations about humanitarian situations within the city, which has been surrounded by Syrian authorities forces.
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Electrical energy and water within the city have additionally been reduce off for days.
The United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that the convoy consisted of 24 vans carrying “life-saving support, together with gas, bread, and ready-to-eat rations, to help folks affected by the current developments”.
It stated the convoy was coordinated with the Syrian authorities.
The Syrian military stated in a press release that it was opening two corridors, one to Ain al-Arab, positioned in Aleppo province, and one other to the close by Hasakah province, to permit “the entry of support”.
Ain al-Arab, which has a inhabitants of 400,000 folks, is hemmed in by the Turkish border to the north and authorities forces on all sides. It’s roughly 200km (125 miles) from the SDF’s stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.
The SDF has accused the Syrian military of imposing a siege in town.
Clashes between the 2 sides erupted earlier this month amid a dispute over the combination of the SDF into the Syrian military. Beneath stress from the USA, the 2 sides agreed to a 4 day ceasefire final week, with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa giving the SDF till Saturday evening to put down arms and give you a plan to combine with the military, or to renew preventing.
The 2 sides prolonged the ceasefire by one other 15 days on Saturday.
Damascus stated the renewed truce was meant to help a US operation to switch some 7,000 detainees from the ISIL (ISIS) group held in prisons beforehand below SDF management to amenities in Iraq.
By Sunday evening, nevertheless, the 2 sides have been buying and selling accusations of violations.
The Syrian military instructed state media that the SDF had focused its positions with drones.
The SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of assaults round Ain al-Arab, together with one which killed a toddler.
The SD, which has misplaced massive areas of the nation to the military, have now been restricted to Kurdish-majority areas within the northeast and Ain al-Arab.
Residents of the city say it was full of people that had fled the Syrian military’s advances within the northeast in current weeks.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Qere Qozaq in Aleppo province, stated the arrival of the UN support convoy got here amid experiences of worsening humanitarian situations in Ain al-Arab.
“However these negotiated options, getting humanitarian support in, stay very fragile, with each side nonetheless primed to return to preventing as and after they really feel it’s wanted,” he stated.
“Whether or not the ceasefire holds or not, whether or not the preventing continues, these are all query marks. However there’s one certainty: so long as the preventing carries on, rebuilding can’t occur,” he added.
Ain al-Arab, which the SDF liberated from a prolonged siege by ISIL in 2015, took on symbolic worth as their first main victory in opposition to the armed group. It took one other 4 years for the SDF, supported by a US-led worldwide coalition, to defeat ISIL territorially in Syria.
Syria’s new authorities, which took energy in 2024 after the autumn of longtime chief Bashar al-Assad, has demanded that the SDF disband.
The US, in the meantime, has stated the aim of its alliance with the SDF has largely ended.
