Tag: Efrin (Afrin) (Total 24)

RIC’s newest periodic report, appearing once every quarter, tracks human rights violations and crimes by Turkey and Turkish-backed SNA groups in the occupied regions of Afrin and the ‘M4 Strip’ – the border region between the occupied cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad. The RIC team:

Link to Twitter hashtag #NoFlyZone4Rojava

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Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: SOHR activists reported that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Ba’danli village of Raju township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.

ARK News: A Human Rights Organization working to document violations in the Kurdish region of Afrin reported on its main page of Facebook today, 14.02.2020, that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Badina village of Rajo township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels who seized the northern Syrian city of Afrin from a Kurdish militia on Sunday have been looting properties, reports say.

A UK-based monitoring group said shops and military and government facilities had been raided.

A rebel commander blamed “thieves” for the looting and said a unit had been set up to prevent further incidents.

The government of Turkey is accused of harvesting olives in Syria’s Afrin and selling them to the European Union (EU) countries.

In Switzerland, Conservative Democratic Party MP Bernhard Guhl has brought the topic into the parliamentary agenda, the Fox News reported.

According to the Olive Oil Times, Afrin Agricultural Council Deputy Chair Saleh Ibo said that Turkey has produced at least 5,000 tons of olive oil with the olives it took from Afrin area.

“They have also been confiscating the fields and olive groves of people who have had to flee Afrin due to the Turkish state violence in the months since the invasion,” Ibo added.

When Turkey launched a military offensive in northern Syria last January and called it Operation Olive Branch, many dismissed the name as part of a propaganda campaign.

Turkey said it wanted to rid the region of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units. It has long fought Kurdish insurgents at home and views the fighters in Syria as part of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey.

One year on, it appears the name of the operation has also taken on a more literal meaning.

(Beirut) – Turkey-backed armed groups in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have seized, looted, and destroyed property of Kurdish civilians in the Afrin district of northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. The anti-government armed groups have installed fighters and their families in residents’ homes and destroyed and looted civilian properties without compensating the owners.

AFRIN, Syria (Reuters) – A day after Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies seized control of Afrin, a Turkish aid group started distributing relief supplies in the town center on Monday, but residents continued to leave after widespread reports of looting.

The demographic changes targeting the Kurdish residents of Syria’s Afrin city are a “disaster,” the Russian ambassador to Iraq told Rudaw last week. Turkey-backed groups have been accused of replacing Kurds with Arabs and Turkmens there.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Geng Shuang, called Turkey’s operations in northeast Syria illegal and criticized Ankara for cutting water supplies from that country’s Alouk water station on Wednesday.

China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Geng Shuang, called Turkey’s operations in northeast Syria illegal. “Since Turkey illegally invaded northeastern Syria, it has repeatedly cut off the water supply service from the Alouk water station,” he said.

Turkish-occupied Afrin. Member of the local Turkish-backed city council attacks a 65 year-old civilian on the street.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – According to a report released earlier this week by a human rights organization, at least 877 civilians throughout 2020 were arrested by Turkish-backed militias and Turkish intelligence in the Afrin region of northern Syria.

This comes despite promises by the Syrian opposition to investigate and stop abuses by Turkish-backed groups in areas occupied by Turkey and its proxy militias, such as Afrin, Tal Abyad, and Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye).

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A new report issued on Tuesday by the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria suggests that Turkish-backed groups in the embattled Middle Eastern nation have “committed torture, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, which constitute war crimes.”

It stated that the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA) continues to unlawfully arrest Kurdish citizens in areas under their control in northern Syria such as in Tal Abyad, Afrin, and Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye).

The human rights organization “STJ registered the release of only 7 detainees, while the remaining 45 continue to be unaccounted for, including the women and children.”

“Turkey has not allowed any media, legal institutions, and human rights organizations to enter the city and document the crimes and daily atrocities.”

UN report is based on 538 witness interviews, documents, satellite imagery, photographs and videos relating to events away from the major battle zones during the first half of this year, Peter Stubley writes

Since Turkey took control of Afrin in 2018, the city’s Syrian Kurds face arbitrary detentions, torture, sexual violations, property theft, extrajudicial killing, and gender-based violence.

Kurds used to make up 96 percent of Afrin’s population but now represent only 25 percent, over two dozen organizations said in a letter they cosigned to call on the UN and major powers to “end the Turkish occupation” of the area.

Turkish military forces and a coalition of Turkey-backed Syrian armed groups have displayed a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians, during the offensive into northeast Syria, said Amnesty International today.

The organization gathered witness testimony between 12 and 16 October from 17 people including medical and rescue workers, displaced civilians, journalists, local and international humanitarian workers, as well as analyzing and verifying video footage and reviewing medical reports and other documentation.

Two and a half years after Turkey and its jihadist allies invaded the predominantly Kurdish region of Afrin in northwestern Syria, excessive violence, looting and expulsions continue to occur in the formerly self-governing canton. There are almost daily reports of kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and murder in the occupied territories. The cases are increasing from month to month and are becoming more and more brutal as the activities of the jihadists become part of everyday life. Numerous brutal crimes were also reported in August this year.. Below, the crimes such as murder and kidnapping are documented from the month of August. In addition, figures are given for crimes such as death, torture, abduction and rape from the occupation of Afrin in May 2018 to the present day. As there is no access to the occupied territories for independent human rights observers and organizations (after the occupation of Afrin in 2018, Sere Kaniye and Gire Spi were occupied in October 2019), access to information on human rights violations is very difficult. Human rights organizations and activists conduct research in the strictest secrecy in order to protect the population remaining in Afrin. The cases documented here are those that come to light with the help of these organizations and activists. The number of unreported cases of human rights violations is most likely much higher.

“For over a year, the Turkish army has illegally occupied the city and region of Afrin. This has particularly impacted the women of the region, with rape, kidnapping and gendered violence systematically used as weapons. The Turkish army and the jihadist militias they fund and support work together in these aims, and have forcibly imposed Sharia law on women of all different beliefs.” Kongra Star

In 2018 Turkish armed forces invaded and took control of the northern Syrian region of Afrin, which was largely populated by Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and other minority groups. The Turks and their allied militias drove hundreds of thousands of people out of Afrin, many of whom sought refuge in northeastern Syria, governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANE). At the end of 2019, Turkey also invaded northeastern Syria after President Trump ordered most US forces out of Syria.