Turkey-allied militias forcing Afrin residents to pay for them

Ali Rajab

Turkish occupation forces and the militias allied to them in northern Syria have maintained their human rights violations in the area.

They force locals who preferred to stay in their homes and not flee ongoing violence to pay money, especially in the northern Syrian city of Afrin and northwestern Aleppo.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the commander of the Suleyman Shah Brigade, the largest militia backing Turkey, forces residents in the villages controlled by his brigade in the countryside of Afrin to pay money.

The commander forces each villager in the area to pay $8 per every olive tree they own or tend to, the observatory said.

The villagers also have to pay a tax, amounting to 15% of the olive harvest, to the brigade, it added.

Some of the villagers submitted a complaint with the Turkish forces. However, they did not care about these complaints.

There are around 20 million olive trees in Afrin which has a predominantly Kurdish population. The town produces about 270,000 tons of olives every year.

The commander of the Mehmed II Brigade had confiscated half the amount of olives produced by the trees of those who had fled the town.

Those fleeing had asked their relatives who remained behind to harvest the olives for them.

The commander of the al-Sham Brigade imposed a tax, amounting to 50% of the produce of the trees left behind by those who had escaped the town.

The confiscation of the belongings of the residents of the city and imposing taxes on them has become a daily reality for these residents, observers said.