October 11, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -  In a wooden hut at the back of a hospital, a woman cradled the head of a dead man and dabbed away grime and blood with a sponge. A blanket covered the man’s mutilated lower half. His blood-soaked military fatigues were still wrapped around his chest.

On a table behind, another body lay zipped into a large blue bag – a young woman this time, also dressed in green and wearing the patches of Kurdish forces. The medical worker straightened her head and gently swept the dead woman’s hair from her face. “We have five martyrs now,” she said, pointing across the makeshift morgue. “Three military and two civilians. The fighters were trying to rescue the others.”

The war between Kurdish forces and Turkey was well into its third day, the bloodiest yet, and ambulances, both real and makeshift, were arriving regularly. As they pulled up, locals and medics gathered around ready to tend to each new body and tell the story of how they had died. “He was a civilian,” one man said as he uncovered a young boy’s face. “Most of them are,” claimed another. “This is a war against the Kurdish people.”

In war the dead often give up their secrets. It was no different here in this Syrian town 20 miles from the frontline where many of those killed were being brought. So far the majority have been fighters torn apart by Turkish weapons fired into the town of Ras al-Ayn, from which civilians continued to flee on Friday along the only road to safety.