Increasing displacement to Autonomous Administration areas | Authorities request “sponsors” for all new comers

 

SOHR activists have reported that SDF-held areas are witnessing an escalation in the displacement movement from regime-held areas recently, where civilians displacing to Deir Ezzor and Al-Raqqa countryside have difficulties in securing their daily life needs.

According to SOHR sources, several families that displaced to SDF areas experience difficulty in issuing the identification paperwork from the Autonomous Administration institutions, where displaced civilians are required to choose a sponsor from residents of the region for each family that doesn’t belong to north eastern of Syria and coming from areas outside of SDF’s control.

The Autonomous Administration had conditioned sponsorship system on civilians from outside of its areas, under the pretext of security procedures and securing the region’s stability which is still suffering from escalating activity of ISIS cells.

On December 23, reliable sources informed SOHR that hundreds of Syrians who have Arab and foreign residence queued in front of Al-Waleed crossing that links the Autonomous Administration areas with Kurdistan Regional of Iraq (KRI) in the countryside of Al-Malikiya | Derik city in north east Syria.
It is worth noting that the crossing administration bans the Syrians passage based on the latest decisions of (KRI) that closed the crossings at bordering areas in the Autonomous Administration and only allow the foreign stuff of the international organizations to pass.
Few days ago, reliable SOHR sources reported that Autonomous Administration areas in north and east Syria are witnessing a crisis of storing food commodities as residents are panic buying and stockpiling essentials like sugar, vegetable oil, margarine, rice and canned food and other supplies fearing these commodity would become unavailable on the market as a result of the government of the KRI closure of Semalka crossing (Fish Khabur), which is the only humanitarian crossing that links north Syrian with the KRI areas.
SOHR documented long queues of a large number of residents and for long hours in front of the consuming institutions to buy food commodities.
On December 21, authorities of the KRI closed all commercial and humanitarian crossings between the region and SDF-held areas in north-east Syria. According to SOHR sources, the region’s authorities will allow the crossing of foreign workers of international organizations towards Kurdistan Region only for December 22. However, the authorities of the KRI will not allow Syrian people with foreign and Iraqi residence documents to cross into the region.
Accordingly, the residents of north-east Syria region in the areas controlled by Autonomous Administration are stranded, with no crossings open with surrounding regions and countries, especially after the closure of Tel Joker crossing previously under an international decision.
It is worth noting that the crossings between SDF-held areas and Turkey have been closed since 2012. Moreover, regime forces frequently closed crossings between regime-controlled areas and SDF-controlled areas, not to mention the harassment by regime forces against the residents passing through these crossings when they are open.
On the other hand, authorities of the KRI have dismantled the pipeline feeding the region with oil from SDF-held areas. The pipeline dubbed “Odayy” was established after an agreement between Stir Kropp company in the KRI and the Autonomous Administration no north and east Syria, stipulating providing an estimated 30,000 oil barrels a day to the KRI at a lower price than the international oil price.