Syria’s Afrin cut off from water as civilians ‘exit through special corridor’

Turkish bombing raids killed 10 fighters loyal to the Syrian government on Wednesday at a checkpoint they were manning near the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, a monitor said.

“The air strikes targeted a checkpoint on the only road leading from Afrin to regime-controlled territory to the southeast,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Also, the water supply to Syria’s Afrin town has been cut off for a week after a change in control of a key dam, the UN office for humanitarian affairs said on Wednesday.

Fighting there has forced thousands of people to flee their homes within the northern Afrin region and towards government territory, it said. Turkey launched an offensive on Syria’s Afrin in January, targeting Syrian Kurdish forces that control the region.

President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped Turkey's military and its rebel allies would completely capture Afrin by Wednesday evening, a day after the armed forces said it had encircled the town.

Speaking to local administrators in Ankara, Erdogan also said civilians in Afrin town were being evacuated in cars through a special corridor, as Turkish forces made substantial advances against Kurdish fighters in their nearly two-month-old offensive.

(With Reuters and AFP)