Erdogan’s crimes: Turkish militias arrest 40 people in Afrin during February

Ali Ragab

Turkish-backed militias in northern Syria continue to carry out more arrests and kidnappings of civilians, as the rates of violence, crime, arrests and kidnappings has increased in the Afrin region and the general areas controlled by the Turkish armed forces.

The arrest and disappearance of at least 40 people in Afrin, including six women and a baby, has been documented since the beginning of February, according to the Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria.

The Turkish forces and the Syrian armed groups supported by them continue to commit more violations and do not care about calls to stop the daily raids, arrests and kidnapping of citizens for the motive of obtaining ransoms, preventing their families from knowing the location or reasons for their detention, refusing to bring them to trial and preventing them from appointing a lawyer.

During the month of January, the Afrin region witnessed the arrest of 66 people, in addition to cases of detention that the center was unable to access, as well as the killing of civilians under torture and multiple cases of violations.

Since the Turkish forces took control of Afrin and northern Syria, the arrests of 7,433 people have been documented, where 1,098 people were tortured and 137 were killed. About 5,100 of them were released, while the fate of the rest of the detainees is still unknown. Ransoms were paid for the release of 1,255 people. In addition, 2,391 people were killed as a result of combat operations, bombings, assassinations, and battle remnants of unexploded mines.

The region is witnessing the prevalence of daily systematic looting, the seizure of people’s homes, properties and olive harvests, in addition to daily arbitrary arrests, kidnapping of people as hostages for a ransom, and harassment of the population.

Launching military chaos and dozens of terrorist groups is a deliberate Turkish policy carried out by Syrian militias under the name of the Syrian National Army of the Syrian Interim Government, and all of this is taking place under the eyes of the Turkish forces and with their participation.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in its latest report that since the Turkish forces, supported by the military factions loyal to them, took control of the Afrin area in the northwestern countryside of Aleppo in March 2018, the pro-Ankara militias began practicing various types of inhumane violations against the indigenous population and the displaced from various Syrian governorates. These violations were represented by systematic theft of civilian property of various kinds, such as homes, shops and agricultural lands, in full view of the Turkish forces deployed within their military bases and headquarters in Afrin and its suburbs. They have exercised security authority over the Kurdish citizens specifically and arrested thousands on charges of previous work within the autonomous region’s institutions or communicating with leaders and elements of the Kurdish forces. In general, the goal is to collect ransom money from these citizens in exchange for their release after their arrest and torture.