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ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that the Syrian regime was violating a cease-fire in the northwestern Idlib region, warning that Damascus would suffer “heavy losses” if it persisted.
Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria’s war, agreed on March 5 to halt hostilities in northwestern Syria after an escalation of clashes there displaced nearly a million people and brought the two sides close to confrontation.
Speaking in Istanbul after a Cabinet meeting, Erdogan said the Syrian regime was using the coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity to ramp up violence in Idlib, and added that Turkey would not allow any “dark groups” in the region to violate the cease-fire either.
Separately, Syria’s Kurds set up a specialized hospital for coronavirus cases, the Kurdish Red Crescent said Monday, after the first COVID-19 death was reported in the northeastern region.
The United Nations on Friday said a man aged in his fifties had on April 2 become the first fatality from COVID-19 in northeast Syria.
In a region suffering from a lack of medical supplies, the news further raised fears of a breakout, including in its thronging camps for the displaced.
Kurdish Red Crescent co-director Sherwan Bery said a new 120-bed facility was now ready to welcome any moderate cases of the virus around 10 km outside the city of Hasakah.
The hospital “is to just focus on the COVID-19 infection cases” and keep them all in the same place instead of across different hospitals, he said.
The idea is “to not spread contamination to other areas,” Bery said.
AFP journalists saw a large ward containing dozens of beds spaced out several meters apart, with tall oxygen tanks by their side.
“We are preparing for the moderate cases,” Bery said, but efforts were also ongoing to set up an intensive care unit for severe cases, there or in another location.