For more than three weeks, the city of Kobani has been subjected to a severe and ongoing siege affecting over half a million people. This includes the city’s original residents as well as displaced families who sought refuge there from Afrin, the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods, Tabqa, Raqqa, and surrounding rural areas. This siege has been accompanied by the deliberate suspension of electricity and water services, as well as restrictions on the entry of medical supplies, food, fuel, and other essential goods. As a result, humanitarian and health conditions in the city have deteriorated to an alarming degree.
The continuation of these harsh conditions places civilians’ lives at serious risk, particularly children, patients, and vulnerable families. Severe shortages of food, infant formula, and essential medicines have been reported, while health facilities are facing a severe depletion of medical supplies and treatment materials. Most local shops have been forced to close after their available goods were fully consumed, and daily life has become a constant struggle to meet basic needs. This situation amounts to collective punishment and constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian standards.
Kobani became a global symbol of resistance against terrorism, and its liberation marked a turning point in the fight against ISIS. Today, the city is being subjected to retaliatory measures for its role in defending shared human values. Exploiting the situation in the city as a means of political pressure against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a dangerous and coercive action. It targets a population that played a leading role in combating terrorism, protecting not only their own people but the wider interests of humanity.
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) expresses its absolute condemnation of the siege imposed on the city of Kobani. It considers this siege a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and all international conventions designed to protect civilians during armed conflicts. The SDC holds the parties enforcing the siege fully responsible—legally and morally—for every civilian victim who may die as a result of hunger, illness, or the lack of essential medical care. It strongly rejects the use of civilians and their livelihoods as tools of political or military coercion under any justification.
The SDC also calls on the interim authority in Damascus to assume its sovereign and legal responsibilities toward its citizens. It urges the immediate opening of all crossings to allow the entry of food, medicine, fuel, and basic necessities, and demands an end to all measures that contribute to tightening the siege on the city. The unity of Syria cannot be built through the starvation of its people, but rather through the protection of their dignity and fundamental rights.
Furthermore, the SDC calls on all Syrian national and democratic powers to take a stand regarding the grave crime being committed in Kobani. It stresses the need for a unified national stance that rejects the siege and places human dignity above limited political interests.
In addition, the SDC urges the Global Coalition against ISIS to fulfill its responsibilities in maintaining security by intervening urgently to lift the siege and prevent a further humanitarian collapse. Such a collapse threatens to undermine the relative stability achieved in Northeast Syria.
The SDC further appeals to the United Nations, the UN Security Council, and international humanitarian organizations to take immediate action. It calls for the deployment of independent investigation missions, the opening of urgent humanitarian corridors, and the classification of these violations within the framework of crimes that require international accountability. The SDC stresses that statements and expressions of concern alone are insufficient in the face of such a crisis.
Today, Kobani appeals to the attention of the global community. A city that once represented the defense of life and resistance against terrorism must not be left to deteriorate under these conditions. The SDC emphasizes that the dignity of the people of Kobani is non-negotiable, and that the determination of a population that defeated ISIS cannot be undermined by siege or deprivation.
Syrian Democratic Council
February 9, 2026
