DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobane, filled with people displaced by recent clashes, as a UN convoy carrying life-saving aid headed there.
The aid came as the Syrian government and Kurdish forces extended a ceasefire agreement by 15 days, after Kurdish forces relinquished swathes of territory to government troops.
Earlier this week, residents in Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, told AFP that they lacked food, water and power and that the enclave was flooded with people who had fled the Syrian army’s advances.
In a statement, the Syrian military said it was opening two corridors, one to Kobane and another in nearby Hasakeh province to allow “the entry of aid”. Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations’ refugee agency in Syria, said on X that “thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government… a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel” departed for Kobane “to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities”.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) lost large areas to government forces during the weeks-long clashes, and find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobane in the north.
The town is surrounded by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides. It is around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Kurds’ stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.
Kobane, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by the Islamic State group in 2015, became a symbol as their first major victory against the jihadists.
On Saturday, Syria’s government and Kurdish forces extended their truce with Damascus saying it was intended to support the US transfer of Islamic State group detainees from Syria to prisons in Iraq, which started earlier this week.
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