KURDWATCH, July 18, 2011—During nation-wide protests on July 15, 2011 demanding an end to the regime numeruous people were wounded and killed. The demonstrations in al-Qamishli, ʿAmudah, Darbasiyah, Raʾs al-ʿAin (Serê Kaniyê) and ʿAin al-ʿArab (Kobanî) proceeded largely peacefully. In contrast, in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood Ruknuddin in Damascus two Kurds were killed in a shooting: eighteen year old Zardasht Wanli and twenty-four year old Muhammad Ghazwan Serwan. In reaction, several hundred people destroyed pictures of Bashar al-Assad in downtown ʿAmudah in the evening. The total number of demonstrators in the Kurdish areas is estimated to be between twenty and fifty thousand.
Another anti-regime demonstration had already taken place in al-Malikiyah (Dêrik) on July 14, 2011.