Two journalists killed in a “direct” Turkish drone attack on a dam in northern Syria

Two journalists were killed Thursday in a “direct” attack by a Turkish drone near the Tishrin Dam in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Kurdish news agency ANHA reported Friday.

“Two journalists were killed in a Turkish drone attack near the Tishrin Dam on the outskirts of Kobani city in eastern Aleppo province,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The NGO, which is based in the United Kingdom but has a wide network of collaborators on the ground, said that the reporters were "covering the situation in the area before the drone targeted them directly, which caused their deaths."

ANHA, for its part, identified the deceased as Jihan Belkin, a correspondent for the agency, and journalist Nazim Dashdam, who “had been reporting on the attacks by the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries against the Tishrin Dam and the Qereqozaqê Bridge since December 8.”

“Our colleagues Jihan Belkin and Nazim Dashdan were attacked yesterday (December 19, 2024) while carrying out their journalistic duties. A Turkish occupation drone attacked the vehicle they were traveling in at 15.20:12.20 p.m. local time (XNUMX:XNUMX GMT) on the road between the Tishrin Dam and the city of Sirin, resulting in their martyrdom and injuries to the driver of the vehicle, Aziz Haj Bozan,” the agency said.

Türkiye has not yet responded to this information.

The incident comes amid an escalation of Turkish attacks on parts of northern and eastern Syria, amid a fragile truce in the Manbech area and a possible offensive on the city of Kobani.

The Tishrin Dam, with a capacity of 2 million cubic metres of water, supplies electricity to much of north-east Syria, where there are areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an armed alliance led by Syrian Kurds and facing the Turks and Syrian rebels supported by Ankara.

The SDF seized control of the dam in 2015 with the help of the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State terrorist group.

The recent clashes have been triggered after an alliance of insurgents led by the Levant Liberation Organization, heir to the al-Nusra Front (the former Syrian branch of Al Qaeda), overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria on December 8.EFE