The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) issued a statement to public opinion on February 9, 2026, in which it strongly condemned the siege imposed on the city of Kobani for more than three weeks, warning of severe humanitarian and health consequences threatening the lives of more than half a million people, including residents of the city and those displaced to it.
The statement noted that the siege targets Kobani’s original inhabitants as well as displaced persons who sought refuge there from Afrin, Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh, Tabqa, Raqqa, and its countryside. It explained that the siege has been accompanied by “a systematic cutoff of electricity and water, and the prevention of the entry of medical supplies, food, fuel, and basic necessities,” leading to “a dangerous deterioration in the overall humanitarian and health situation.”
The Syrian Democratic Council stated that the continuation of these conditions “has begun to place civilians’ lives in extreme danger, especially children, the sick, and the impoverished,” due to the acute shortage of food, infant formula, and essential medical supplies, at a time when “health centers are exhausting what remains of their medicines and treatment materials.” The statement added that most shops have closed after running out of stock, considering that what the city is experiencing “meets all criteria of a war crime and collective punishment.”
The statement stressed the symbolic significance of Kobani, describing it as “a global symbol of resistance against terrorism,” and noting that the battle to liberate it marked “the beginning of the end for ISIS.” It considered that what the city is facing today constitutes “punishment for having stood on the side of humanity as a whole.” It added that “turning the city into a political pressure card against the Syrian Democratic Forces is a dangerous retaliatory act that targets the will of a people who stood on the front lines defending the entire world against terrorism.”
In this context, the Syrian Democratic Council expressed its “absolute condemnation of the siege imposed on Kobani, considering it a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and all conventions that protect civilians during conflicts.” It held “the parties enforcing the siege fully legally and morally responsible for every victim who falls due to hunger, disease, or lack of medicine,” and emphasized its “categorical rejection of using civilians and their livelihoods as tools of political or military blackmail under any pretext.”
The Council called on the “interim Damascus authority” to assume its sovereign and legal responsibilities toward its citizens, to immediately open all crossings for the entry of food, medicine, and fuel, and to halt any measures that contribute to suffocating the city, affirming that “the unity of Syria is not built by starving its people, but by safeguarding their dignity and rights.”
The statement also called on “all Syrian national and democratic forces not to remain silent in the face of the crime taking place in Kobani, a crime that shames the conscience of humanity,” urging the adoption of “a unified national stance that rejects the siege and places human dignity above all narrow considerations.”
At the international level, the Syrian Democratic Council urged the Global Coalition against ISIS to “assume its role in maintaining security by urgently intervening to lift the siege and prevent the collapse of the humanitarian situation, which threatens to undermine all that has been achieved in terms of stability in northern and eastern Syria.” It also appealed to the United Nations, the Security Council, and international humanitarian organizations, calling for “the dispatch of immediate fact-finding missions, the opening of urgent humanitarian corridors, and the classification of what is happening within the framework of crimes requiring international accountability, rather than limiting responses to statements and declarations.”
The statement concluded by affirming that “Kobani today is calling upon the conscience of the world,” adding that “the city that triumphed for life must not be left to a slow death,” and stressing that “the dignity of the people of Kobani is not subject to bargaining, and that the will of its people, who defeated ISIS, will not be broken by siege and starvation.”
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