Iraqi Kurds ‘permanently’ seal off border to Syria

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union has sealed off a Syrian border crossing with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, an Iraqi border official has said.

Shokat Barbahari, head of the Peshkhabour border crossing between Iraq’s Kurdistan and Syria told the Arabic language, al-Sumeriya News that Kurdish Democratic Union authorities have announced that they are closing the border ‘permanently’.

Barbahari said they gave no reason as why they have decided to do so.

He added many people are now stuck at both sides of the border and warned this could leave Syrian citizens in jeopardy.

The Iraqi official said nearly 200 Syrians used to cross the border into Kurdistan to collect humanitarian aids and supplies.

Thousands of Syrian refugees, the vast majority of them Kurds, have fled the region since the war broke out in Syria, and crossed the border to the self-ruled Kurdish region of northern Iraq.