Afrin IDPs demand an international protection to return to their city
Aleppo – North-Press Agency
Dejla Khalil
The displaced people of Afrin who reside in camps in northern Aleppo countryside have called the international community and human rights organizations to exert pressure on Turkey to withdraw from the region, in order to return to their city.
The Turkish army and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition groups had launched a military campaign on January 20 last year, in which they managed to take control over the region of Afrin on March 18 of the same year after fierce battles with People’s Protection Units (YPG) that lasted for about two months, and caused the displacement of about 350,000 Syrian Kurdish people to northern Aleppo countryside.
People’s demands
“I need nothing but Afrin, and an olive tree,” Farhan Jaafar, an old man has called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to intervene and exclude the Turkish army and its affiliated opposition groups from the region of Afrin.
“All countries, including Syria, are silent about the situation of Afrin IDPs and the situation in Afrin in general,” Jaafar said sorrowfully and explained that they, “were bombarded for 55 days by Turkish fighter jets and ground shelling.”
Abdo Hisso, a displaced person from Afrin, also stressed that the area should be under international protection so that people could return to the region safely.
Hisso pointed out that humanitarian organizations do not provide any sort of aids for the displaced people of Afrin in the northern Aleppo countryside, “The situation in the camps is very difficult, and the tents don’t shelter us neither from the heat of summer nor the cold of winter,” he said.
For his part, Muhammad Mustafa an IDP in Sardam Camp said that the Turkish army and the opposition groups keep stealing the antiquities of Afrin and kidnapping civilians for ransom, while the international community remains silent.
“There will be no solution for the Syrian crisis unless Turkey gets out of all Syrian territories,” Muhammad said calling on the world and the international community to intervene, so they could return to their region, which he described as occupied.
Afrin IDPs live in five camps in northern Aleppo countryside amid difficult living conditions and the absence of the role of most humanitarian and relief organizations.