Nearly 170,000 people have fled after a Turkish-led assault on the Syrian city of Afrin, the UN said Friday (March 23rd), pointing to the harrowing conditions faced by those displaced, AFP reported.
"The estimate now is 167,000 people have been displaced by hostilities in Afrin district," said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency.
He said most of those who had left had gone to nearby Tal Rifaat.
The World Health Organization (WHO) meanwhile said it had deployed mobile medical clinics and health supplies to areas hosting those displaced from Afrin, warning that health services inside the city were also lacking.
"Children, women, and men have undertaken harrowing journeys to flee Afrin and need urgent health assistance. Our staff have met civilians who reported walking for 36 hours to reach safer areas," WHO's representative in Syria Elizabeth Hoff said in a statement.
According to Laerke, between 50,000 and 70,000 civilians are estimated to remain inside the city, where only one of four hospitals was currently functioning.
It's the duty of Kurdish and Syrian patriots to expel the Turkish occupier and the gangs of mercenaries who allied with them. They should also work on bringing back the displaced people to their land in Afrin, Jebel al-Akrad.
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