Syrian Border Villagers Risk Lives for Food, Fuel from Iraqi Kurdistan
DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – Every night, thousands of poor Kurdish villagers on the Syrian border walk for miles in the freezing winter, risking their lives to cross into Iraqi Kurdistan for bread and heating fuel to sustain their families for a day.
“They try to get some food and fuel and take it back to their families," said a source, adding that the villagers were trying to cope with the building humanitarian disaster in Syria’s Kurdish regions (west Kurdistan), unleashed by the civil war.
After border guards opened the gate for refugees in Shleke village, every night around 5,000 cross the border into the Kurdistan Region, he said.
In 1991, Iraqi Kurds themselves lived through a humanitarian disaster, coping with insufficient food and fuel supplies during a military crackdown on the Kurds by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
"The war in Syria has greatly affected the people, especially the Kurds in west Kurdistan who are facing food and fuel shortages and living in deplorable conditions," said Hashim Siteyi, a commander of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Peshmarga forces stationed on the border.
He said that Turkey and the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) were prohibiting food supplies into Syria’s Kurdish regions.
“FSA members do not allow humanitarian organizations to send aid to the people in this region freely, insisting it should be only through them. The economic situation of the people is worsening day by day,” Siteyi warned.
"There are women, and children as young as 10, among the villagers who cross over. They mainly come and take food and fuel, enough to sustain their families for one day," he added.
The commander denied claims that refugees were being stopped from crossing the border.
“We do not allow those who come for trade and smuggling to cross the border, but we do help those who come to take some sugar or a few liters of fuel back to their families and children," he said.
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