Ongoing siege of Syria’s Aleppo neighborhoods to cause health disaster
ALEPPO COUNTRYSIDE, Syria (North Press) – Resorting to eight pharmacies in the besieged neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud, finally the 47-year-old Fatima Battal managed to obtain the blood pressure medication from a pharmacy outside her neighborhood.
The 4th Armored Division of the Syrian government forces has been banning flour and other basics from entering to both neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh for over 23 days.
As a result, bakeries in the aforementioned neighborhoods stopped and pharmacies ran out of types of medications.
Both Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods, northern Aleppo, are semi-autonomous and run by a civil administration.
The two neighborhoods, in addition to the IDPs camps and villages in the northern countryside of Aleppo are housing the IDPs of Afrin who fled the violations and the invasion of the Turkish army and the Turkish-backed armed Syrian opposition factions since their control of Afrin in 2018.
Many patients have to walk considerable distances to neighborhoods run by the government in order to buy medicine they need, Battal told North Press.
In the coming weeks, almost all pharmacies in the besieged neighborhoods will witness severe shortage in some types of medications, a pharmacist in Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood said.
The government checkpoints impose taxes between 20,000 and 50,000 Syrian pounds (SYP) on cars loading medicine heading to those neighborhoods, the pharmacist said in a statement to north Press under the condition of anonymity.
“Prior to the siege, there were 45 warehouses for medicine, but right now they are 20,” the pharmacist added.
Speaking of the medicine prices, he said 99% of the pharmacies in those neighborhoods sell according to the prices identified by the Syrian government health department.
If the siege continues, prices will increase because many cars loaded with medications were not allowed in to the neighborhoods, according to him.
On her part, co-chair of the Health Council in the besieged neighborhoods Laila Hassan said the ongoing siege deteriorated the economic conditions and burdened residents.
Pharmaceuticals rep demand that the council pay them amounts they are forced to pay at the government checkpoints before entering the neighborhoods otherwise they will stop entering to them.
The pharmacist in Ashrafiyeh neighborhood Jwan Dawood said “if the siege continues, we will face a health disaster because most of the pharmacies and health centers lack many types of drugs”.