12 psychiatric patients injured in PYD/PKK attacks in Syria

Twelve people were injured Friday in attacks by the PYD/PKK at two hospitals in a district of Syria on Turkey’s border.

The PYD/PKK, in Syria’s Afrin province, opened artillery fire on psychiatric and maternity hospitals in Azez in the province of Aleppo.

According to initial reports, 12 psychiatric patients were injured, including four seriously wounded, authorities of the psychiatry hospital told Anadolu Agency.

The PYD/PKK is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.

Injured patients were sent to near hospitals from the building which was heavily damaged.

The second fire attack which hit near the maternity hospital did not cause any loss or injuries.

Security forces in Azez said that the PYD/PKK’s attacks from Afrin that target civilians in Azez have increased recently.

Since the mid-1980s, the PKK has waged a wide-ranging terror campaign against the Turkish state in which an estimated 40,000 people have been killed.

An operation in Afrin, a region bordering Turkey's Hatay and Kilis provinces, is widely expected in the wake of Turkey's seven-month Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria, which ended in March 2017.

The Assad regime handed over Afrin to the PYD/PKK, and there are currently some 8,000-10,000 members of the group in the area, according to information gathered by Anadolu Agency. After Turkey warned of their presence in Afrin, militants are now hiding out in shelters and pits in residential areas there.

As Turkey moves to what is likely to be a decisive confrontation with the YPG on the Syrian border, our correspondent Ahmed Alburai spoke to two Syrian refugees who have suffered at the hands of the group.