Demonstrations were held in Sydney and Melbourne to protest the Turkish military offensive against Kurds in South Kurdistan/Northern Iraq, and more are planned. Peter Boyle reports.
what did you find? well, john, we ve literally just returned from northern syria. we spent nearly a week there trying to get a sense of how the kurdish people have been affected by the turkish military offensive, by this drastic move by president trump. and essentially we found a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness and a desperate humanitarian situation. class should be in session now, but here, the school has become a temporary shelter for displaced people. in one classroom, we meet ibrahim hassan, the kurdish father of five. he tells us he was forced to flee his home with his children when the turkish military operation began. this is what remains of his house. ibrahim says it is one of many in his kurdish neighborhood that was deliberately ransacked by turkish-backed forces.
reporter: now the states goal of the turkish military offensive, erica, was to create a so-called safe zone, a buffer zone around 20 miles wide across the entire border between turkey and syria. but from what we have been seeing and hearing reports on the ground, for weeks now it is clear that this is not a safe zone at all. there are multiple reports of the cease-fire being broken and also car bombs have become a persistent problem particularly in the town of rossaline today and that is the town with ibrahim and most of the characters from our story today come from. a car bomb taking place there earlier this afternoon killing at least 17 people, erica. so certainly to many on the ground here in northern syria, the safe zone doesn t feel very safe at all. we can understand why. in iraq this past weekend vice president pence met with the president of the kurdish region and said he wanted to in his words reiterate the strong bonds forged in the fires of war
crowded in the past 24 hours. we re seeing syrian government forces enter the fray as well as russian troops. the russian forces are in between syrian forces and turkish forces acting as a mediator patrolling in between the two sides trying to fill the vacuum left by u.s. forces. two new players on the scene here in a very complicated battle structure. as you mentioned, president trump going all out to try and find a cease-fire here. calling president erdogan of turkey, invoking financial sanctions as well as dispatching vice president pence here to turkey in the near future. a real effort there that has not borne fruit yet. turkish military offensive still going strong. created 160,000 people on the run. about half of those people are children and many of those families say they simply have nothing at this point. aid agencies can t reach them. here is one.