UN calls on Ankara to allow flow into Kobanê

UN calls on Ankara to allow flow into Kobanê

ANF - GENEVA10.10.2014 17:00:17

A United Nations envoy monitoring the ISIS offensive in the Kobanê town of West Kurdistan, Rojava, has warned Friday that the 12,000  civilians apart from the fighters in Kobanê "will most likely be massacred" if the town falls to Islamic State fighters.

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called on the Turkish authorities to allow the flow of volunteers at least and their own equipment in order to be able to enter the city and contribute to a self-defence operation. "And if they can, to support the deterrent actions of the collation through whatever means from their own territory", he added.

Recalling that the inhabitants of the Kobanê town have decided to resist and they are resisting until now, Mistura said the latest figures they had is that about 10,000 to 13,000 of them are in a certain border line area just outside Kobani –Ayn al-Arab- between the border of Turkey and Syria, nearby the city. They are there and there are at the same time about 500 to 700 mostly elderly people and civilians still inside the centre of the city, he noted and added; "We know, we have seen it, what ISIL is capable of doing when they take over a city. We know what they are capable of doing with their own victims, with women, children, minorities and hostages."

"You remember Srebrenica? We do. We never forgot. And probably we never forgave ourselves for that", the U.N. Envoy for Syria said and called for urgent action to protect the civilians, in this case of Kobani –Ayn al-Arab.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura appealed Turkey to take some specific additional actions to stop the advance of ISIL, underlining; "We need that because otherwise all of us, including Turkey, will be regretting deeply that we have missed an opportunity of stopping ISIL and sending a signal that that cannot continue. If Kobani – Ayn al-Arab- falls, there will be close to 400 km of the Turkish border to be basically under control of ISIL out of the 900. And what would be next ?"