The nine-year-old boy who was shot in Turkey’s border city of Ceylanpınar (Serêkanî) on Saturday by an unidentified gunman died in hospital on Tuesday, Mezopotamya News Agency reported.

Yusuf S. was on his way to his grandfather’s house, some 400 metres from the Turkish-Syrian border, when he was shot in the head with a bullet fired from the Syrian city of Serêkaniyê on the other side of the border, under occupation by the Turkish military and its proxy Syrian National Army (SNA).

Yusuf, who’d been first taken to the state hospital in Ceylanpınar, was later transferred to a private hospital in the city of Urfa (Riha) for further treatment.

The Kurdish-majority city of Serêkaniyê was occupied after Turkey launched an attack, dubbed ‘Operation Peace Spring’, on 9 October 2019.

Armed groups within the SNA have been engaged in internal conflicts and clashes over looting or territorial dominance, and stray bullets are known to have injured many in the last two and a half years.

Hawar News reported on 4 May that two armed groups, a ‘Beyreq El Şîêtat’ and ‘the military police’, were recently engaged in heavy clashes near the village Rawiye on the west of Serêkaniyê, resulting from conflict of interest in smuggling operations.

There were several casualties, dead and injured, on both sides, according to the report, and the injured were taken to hospitals in Turkey for treatment.