Press briefing notes on Syria, Afghanistan and Haiti - See more at: Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Rupert Colville Location: Geneva Date: 7 October 2014 (1) Syria We are very alarmed by the situation in Kobane, the town also known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, in north-eastern Syria, which is currently being attacked by ISIL. Up until 3 or 4 days ago, there were still some 10,000 civilians who had not yet crossed into Turkey, and although most have now done so, some may still remain. From 4 September onwards, ISIL is reported to have intensified what appears to have been indiscriminate shelling of various parts of the town, as they advanced to the outskirts. On Monday 6 September, ISIL units reportedly broke through the trenches dug by the town’s mainly Kurdish defenders, and street-to-street fighting then took place in eastern neighbourhoods of the town. They also took control of a number of buildings and a strategic hill looking over the town from the south-east . As a result of these developments, most of the approximately 10,000 civilians who had remained in the border area are believed to have crossed into Turkey on Sunday and Monday. The Kurdish groups in control of Kobane had reportedly ordered civilians to seek refuge in Turkey, and civilian administrators in Kobane were also said to have mostly left the town by yesterday evening. Nevertheless we remain hugely concerned for the safety of any civilians remaining in Kobane or in the border area near the town, as well as in surrounding villages. We believe the numbers are now , at most, in the hundreds -- maybe fewer. But clearly anyone who falls into the hands of ISIL is at risk. Given their atrocious record of repeated murders and summary executions of prisoners in both Syria and Iraq, we are also extremely concerned about the fate of any combatants captured by ISIL. - See more at: ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15142&LangID=E#sthash.AUxuFeWH.tGcPhoYG.dpuf ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15142&LangID=E#sthash.AUxuFeWH.tGcPhoYG.dpuf
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 01:01:32 +0000
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