Ala'a Nur Al-Dein, Baladi News
Media sources concerned with the Kurdish affairs revealed on Sunday the stealing of food aid convoy by PYD militias after passing "Simalka" water crossing coming from Iraqi Kurdistan.
The sources quoted the presidential representative of Kurdistan region for the affairs of "Western Kurdistan", Homaid Darbandi confirming that forces affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) seized control over an aid convoy after passing the crossing heading towards the so-called "Autonomy-held areas". Darbandi explained by a statement to "Passnews" that forces affiliated to PYD controlled the aid convoy loaded with tons of sugar, tea, rice, and others, noting that such forces are trying to sell these substances to the merchants in order to get money instead. He also indicated that the militia leaders have been informed with the necessity of not intercepting and confiscating these aid convoys because they are the bread and butter for the people in the western Kurdistan.
Sultan Ahmad, one of the media activists in the region said that the incident is not the first of its kind done by the members of Kurdish militias as PYD members did seize control earlier over aid convoys, which forced the Iraqi part to close the crossing for 4 consecutive months before reopening it.
Al-Ahmad pointed out in a speech with Baladi News that such practices are within the Kurdish militias' policy of tightening on the residents in the framework of imposing the policy of "fait accompli", demonstrating that the Kurdish militias deliberately closed the commercial land crossings with Al-Raqqah, the most important of which is "Al-Mabroukat" crossing in the countryside of Ra'as Al-Ayn which resulted in a two-month siege on the region, in which all the foodstuff had been lost, mainly the basic substances.
Regarding the adoption of this policy by the "Autonomy", Al-Ahmad said that the Kurdish units exploit the chaos caused by the ongoing war in the region with the absence of international monitoring, which gives them plenty of time to implement their policy of the demographic change by displacing, recruiting, burning of houses and besieging in pursuit of establishing "Rojava". Their main objective is to displace who's left, "those who weren't killed by war, will be killed by hunger if they did not leave," as he described.
It's noteworthy that the region under the control of Kurdish units northeastern of Syria had emptied since nearly a month ago from all food supplies, where activists and civilian bodies accused Kurdish units of being behind the siege imposed on the region, by not allowing the commercial convoys of entering into their areas.
The government of Kurdistan had agreed to open "Simalka" water crossing earlier in June, after four months of closure, in protest against the Kurdish units practices. Then, they reopened it for trading only and they canceled all customs fees on both sides of the crossing, the thing that Kurdish units seek to impose (imposing taxes on commercial convoys) to resume blackmailing the Iraqi part with such practices.