Turkey shells town in Aleppo, causes material damage
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Turkish forces shelled on Friday a town in the northern countryside of Aleppo causing material damage to shops and houses.
A local source told North Press that the Turkish forces targeted the town of Tel Rifaat and the surrounding villages of Sheikh Issa, Herbel, Umm Hosh, Umm al-Qura and al-Wahshiyah in the northern countryside of Aleppo with artillery shells.
The shelling caused material damage to the houses of the civilians and the death of a flock of sheep.
The town of Tel Rifaat, 35 km north of Aleppo city that lies on the Shahba Region, has been a shelter for Afrin displaced people since 2018 following the Turkish invasion of Afrin and its countryside.
There are 1,662 displaced families from Afrin and 35 displaced families from Idlib live in Tel Rifaat, according to previous statistics carried out by Autonomous Administration of Afrin, which is currently operating in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
There are also 630 families that include about 3,000 people of original residents in the town, according to the same source.
The northern countryside of Aleppo, also known as Shahba Region, houses IDPs of the Kurdish city of Afrin which was occupied in 2018 by Turkey following a military operation called “Olive Branch” to push away the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of protecting Turkey’s “national security”.
The operation caused the displacement of about 300,000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin.
There are about 16,000 displaced families from Afrin distributed over 42 villages and towns in Shahba Region, in addition to 1,870 families, comprising 7,500 individuals, now living in the camps of Barkhodan, Sardam, Afrin, al-Awda, and Shahba, according to the Social Affairs and Labor Board of the Afrin region, currently operating in Aleppo northern countryside.
The area has been militarily protected by Russian and Syrian government forces since 2018.