Government siege on Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods afflicts aspects of life
NORTHERN ALEPPO (North Press) – Tightening the siege on two neighborhoods in Aleppo by government would yield in closing hospitals and bakeries, co-chair of General Council of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods, Welat Mamo said.
Both Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh, northern of Aleppo, are semi-autonomous and run by a civil administration.
Since 2013 the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Government has been besieging Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh. However, since two months the rope has been tightened.
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 opposition factions since their control of Afrin in 2018.
Mamo told North Press the two neighborhoods are short of medicines, flour, bread, fuels- notably diesel- as winter approaches.
Due to the siege, workshops and factories in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh become out of commission, according to a well- informed source.
The Fourth Armored Division prevented the entry of Red Crescent’s aid to be delivered to IDPs, according to Mamo.
The two neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh have become a safe haven for many people from both inside and outside Aleppo. This has led to the activation of trade and industrial movement, but the Syrian government besieges them frequently.
Also, both neighborhoods enjoy security and stability better than that of the other neighborhoods in Aleppo, which made them to be a target of the armed opposition factions several times.
The neighborhoods are separated from the other neighborhoods in Aleppo by three government security checkpoints; Ashrafiyeh, Awared, and Maghsalat al-Jazira.