Civilians pay price as Turkey battles Syrian Kurds
ANKARA, Turkey — Rockets fired from northern Syria into a Turkish border town killed a teenage girl and wounded another person on Wednesday, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported, in the latest fallout from Ankara’s intensifying offensive on a Syrian Kurdish-controlled enclave.
Doctors inside the northwestern enclave of Afrin meanwhile warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation, adding that medical supplies at the city’s main hospital, which has received dozens of patients in the past week, were running low.
Activists say more than 65 civilians have died in Afrin since Turkey launched its aerial and ground campaign on Jan. 20 to drive out a Syrian Kurdish militia. Ankara considers the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, an extension of the outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting an insurgency inside Turkey.
The militia has hit back with occasional rockets across the border.