In the hospital in Derik, Syria, the air is thick with the sound of shouting and crying. There are muffled sobs as women hold each other tightly. One helps another to stand upright, as tears threaten to send her to her knees.

The supporting woman explains that her friend's brother was killed in last night's air strikes on this part of north-east Syria.

He was working inside the electricity station that was fired on by a Turkish warplane. "He was so young", she says. Grief is everywhere here.

Outside the street is filled with cars. Inside, the hospital foyer is thronged with people.

One of them is Souad Khalaf. Her daughter Hevrin was a noted Kurdish politician who was shot dead along with her driver when their car was ambushed in October 2019.

It happened days after Turkey launched a ground incursion across the border into Syrian territory.

"At midnight we heard loud noises around Taqil Baqil village, where the power station is," she explains. "Then we lost our electricity. We couldn't sleep because of the bombing. In the morning we heard about all the people who were killed and injured. Two of the dead were my relatives."

Pinned to Souad's black coat is a small pink badge. It shows a picture of Hevrin's smiling face, atop a jasmine flower.

"All the European and international countries can see what Turkey's President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is doing to us and our people but nobody is doing anything," she continues.

"Even if he does manage to take over our land, we will still be Syrians. But we don't understand why nothing is being done, even though Turkey is killing us. We call on everyone, and on human rights groups, to stop this aggression against us."

Turkey's air operation came a week after six people were killed in a bombing on Istanbul's busiest shopping street, and 80 more were injured. They too were civilians, ordinary shoppers enjoying the festive atmosphere with their families.

In the first hours after the attack CCTV pictures emerged showing a woman sitting on a bench on Istiklal Street before tucking a bag underneath it. Minutes after she moved away it exploded.

Later that night, Istanbul police made an arrest. A official video was released showing a woman being held on the floor by armed officers and led away.

They announced that she was a Syrian named Alham Albashir, affiliated with and trained by the PKK - the Kurdistan Workers Party. A Kurdish separatist group, it has a history of attacks in Turkey. Before the sun rose the next morning, Turkish officials had - they said - identified and apprehended their main suspect.

But critics of the Turkish government were uneasy. They pointed to a lack of concrete evidence about the woman's background, and wondered whether the solution they were being presented with was all too simple?