Turkey hands over 250 Syrian refugees to opposition areas in NW Syria
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – On Friday, Turkish authorities handed over more than 250 Syrian refugees to the opposition-held areas in northwest Syria in continuation of Turkey’s plan to change the demography of northern Syria.
An exclusive source told North Press that the Turkish authorities handed over the Military Police, a faction affiliated with Turkish-backed armed opposition, known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), more than 100 refugees including 23 women with their children through Tel Abyad border crossing in the north of Raqqa, northern Syria.
The city of Tel Abyad with its countryside have been under the Turkish occupation since 2019 following a military operation dubbed “Peace Spring” launched by the Turkish forces and their affiliated SNA factions to push away the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) under the pretext of “protecting the Turkish national security.”
The source also said the authorities deported other 150 refugees including 39 women with their children to Idlib Governorate through Bab al-Hawa border crossing.
Idlib Governorate is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front) and its political wing, the Salvation Government, and the SNA factions with its political wing the Interim Government.
The authorities took the refugees’ iris scans and fingerprints to prevent them from entering Turkey, the source added.
By deporting the refugees, Turkey aims at changing the demography of the region, since it sends the refugees from other parts of Syria to the north after it completes building settlements in areas such as Afrin.
An exclusive source told North Press that the number of deportees in August through the crossings of Bab al-Hawa, Baba al-Salama, and Tel Abyad surpassed 12,000.
Though Syria is still unsafe for returns, Turkey tries to get rid of the refugees by forcibly deporting them, as the Turkish authorities have intensified the forced deportation of Syrians as part of what they call voluntary return to safe areas in northwestern Syria, according to media and documentary reports.