The neighborhoods of Sheikh-Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in the Syrian city of Aleppo have been under a suffocating siege for years by the Syrian regime forces, and this siege continues, contrary to all human rights laws, even after the area was exposed to a devastating earthquake, a number of buildings fell, and dozens of civilians were killed and dozens injured, and the psychological suffering of children continues and the elderly.
These two neighborhoods are inhabited by the Kurdish majority, with the presence of Arab, Armenian and Syriac nationalities. The two neighborhoods were marginalized by the Syrian regime and left without services before the start of the Rojava revolution. In 2013, the radical armed factions took control of the neighborhood, and as a result of the resistance of the people, the neighborhood was liberated after most of the buildings were either completely destroyed or serious cracks made them uninhabitable. Since that time, the people of the two neighborhoods have managed their municipalities, communes, and service, economic, human rights, and cultural institutions on their own under the roof of elected local councils, without the control of the Syrian state. The military forces of the regime imposed a suffocating siege on the two neighborhoods.
After the devastating earthquake occurred on February 6th, the crisis cell was formed by the members of the communes, and all the ethnicities joined hands with each other to provide all the necessary assistance according to the available capabilities. Where people were transferred to schools and places of worship, and tents were built for them to rely on themselves, and to share their household items with the affected people from their neighborhood.
What made it worse was the continuation of the siege imposed by the Syrian regime on the region, which led to the lack of basic resources such as medical medicines, fuel, and infant formula, and made the region under the burden of a miserable and harsh condition.
We, as Civil Diplomacy Centre in North and East Syria, call on all countries and humanitarian organizations that sponsor human and childhood rights. To take these two areas into consideration and send urgent aid to them.
