Turkey-allied militias step up violations in Syria’s Afrin

Ali Rajab

Militias allied to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan keep committing crimes against Syrians, amid mysterious silence from the international community.

They especially do this in the northern Syrian city of Afrin which is predominantly inhabited by Kurds.

The pro-Erdogan militias extort money from the residents of the city and arbitrarily arrest locals. This comes as Erdogan keeps back financial support to the militias while his country’s economy continues to collapse.

The Center for Documenting Turkish Violations in Northern Syria has so far documented the disappearance of 33 people in Afrin since the beginning of December.

Organized looting has become a norm in the city along with the confiscation of the homes of locals. The pro-Erdogan militias also keep cut off olive trees and take locals hostage to demand ransoms from their families.

On December 1, Turkish intelligence officers kidnapped three native Kurdish citizens, according to the local human rights group.

The Suleyman Shah militia imposed a tax on local Kurds. The tax amounts to three galloons of olive oil for each family.

The same militia also forced one of the locals to pay $1,500 in fines for managing assets that are registered in his mother’s name.

The Center for Documenting Turkish Violations in Northern Syria has documented the detention of 7,083 Afrin locals since the beginning of Turkish occupation of the city.

It said 1,041 of those detainees were subjected to torture, including 133 who died of torture.