I spent Sept. 18–19 on the Turkey-Syria border. I didn’t confine myself to Nusaybin, on the Turkish side of the border, which is adjacent to Qamishli, the largest city in northern Syria and a population that is 80% Kurds. On the night of Sept. 18, a night before a full moon, I was at Derbesiyeh, 60 kilometers west of Qamishli and the only border crossing open to food and medicine shipments to Syrian Kurds. I settled on a railroad track to watch some 40 trucks ferrying into Syria 400 tons of supplies collected from Turkey. I spent several hours on the tracks — “ground zero” on the Turkey-Syria border.

The collection and shipment of relief assistance is being coordinated by the Nusaybin municipality, which is why the mayor of Nusaybin, accompanied by Turkish gendarmerie, was discussing the technical issues of transferring supplies via the railroad to officials of the Supreme Kurdish Council, who are responsible for governing Syria Kurds on the other side.

One must come to the Turkey-Syria border to obtain information impossible to get anywhere else. For example, the population of Nusaybin, previously around 80,000, has increased to 100,000, with relatives escaping from Syria. People in Nusaybin say Qamishli had around 350,000 people before the conflict, but is now around 700,000 as a result of internal displacement. The people of Nusaybin are good sources for news because every one of them has relatives in Qamishli, and every piece of information from Syria instantly reaches Nusaybin.

The reason no relief supplies are transferred directly between the two adjacent towns is quite interesting: Qamishli is the only place where there are still Syrian regime personnel working at the crossing to Turkey and at the airport.