Kurdish Red Crescent Heyva Sor a Kurd released a statement on the impact of the withdrawal of international NGOs and continued attacks as Turkey’s military offensive seeking to invade North and East Syria continues for a week now.

The statement includes the following;

“After the agreement between the Syrian Government and the SDF all international NGOs had to withdraw their international staff and have no access anymore to the region and also the situation got unpredictable with Turkey as a NATO partner. At the same time the impact on the humanitarian situation is disastrous. Services for newly displaced people and already overburdened IDP/Refugee Camps decreased to a critical minimum. The IDP/Refugee camps are now left with extremely limited support. The coordination among remaining local NGOs and UN Organizations is poor and if support is provided there is duplication while at the same time big gaps in critical services such as shelter, drinking water and food. The coordination for the Emergency response is extremely difficult after all international NGOs also withdrew their essential expat staff this morning. Right now, KRC is the ONLY humanitarian Aid Organization providing direct Emergency Response on ground. Meanwhile, Turkey does not accept us as a neutral humanitarian aid organization and breaks international humanitarian law by targeting our ambulances and health point. By time of writing this statement the Turkish troops have nearly reached Tal Tamr. The chance that the hospital becomes a target itself is high. We are monitoring the situation very close, in order to re-allocate the team and the patients.

We will continue our activities in all six camps and all health clinics and hospitals that are supporting in all cities. We will continue to monitor and documentation of the wounded and martyrs. We also assist the newly displaced people and coordinating the humanitarian support.

In the best case this will end up in a massive escape towards Iraq (and then Europe), in the worst we experience a genocide. We need NOW the help of the international communities!

We need NOW Turkey to stop the invasion and to accept Syrian territory!

We need NOW the access for international humanitarian Aid Organizations!

We need NOW the support of all democratic nations who accepts the human rights to stop this!

We consider Europe as well as USA and Russia as responsible to end this massacre immediately!”