Tag: Invasion and occupation of Rojava (Total 11)

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:

Turkey’s invasion into northern Syria has caused a demographic shift that many fear will become permanent, reports Richard Hall

Weeks have passed since the Turkish invasion of northern Syria. Since then, the implications have been steadily acknowledged for both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), since Turkey is a member of the latter and a strategic partner of the former.

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.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian fighters vowed to kill “pigs” and “infidels,” paraded their Kurdish captives in front of cameras and, in one graphic video, fired several rounds into a man lying on the side of a highway with his hands bound behind his back.

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.