Two elderly people killed by Turkish-backed armed groups in one week in Afrin
North-Press Agency
On Wednesday, Syrian armed opposition groups affiliated with Turkey killed an elderly man in Midanki, in Sharran district of Afrin region in the northwest of the country, due to his refusal to graze livestock owned by an armed group on his land.
According to what local sources told North-Press, 74-year-old Ali Ahmed succumbed to his wounds after being severely beaten by members of the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad militia.
This is not the first incident in the Afrin region since Turkey seized control the region in March 2018, as human rights and press reports have documented hundreds of different violations against civilians and their property.
The incident was the second of its kind in less than a week, after 80-year-old Fatima Ibrahim Kana was strangled to death in the village of Hekja, in Afrin’s Shih district, by the Turkish-backed militants of Saad Bin Abi Waqas after they entered her home to loot it.
The Violations Documentation Center, which is concerned with monitoring the events in the Afrin region, said that Ali Ahmed died en route to a hospital in Afrin as a result of bleeding in the brain.
Local sources reported that the civilian police did not interfere as they feared the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad that controls the area.
Violations by Turkish-backed armed groups in Afrin continue and include killings, kidnappings, extortion, theft of money, property, and antiquities in the region, in addition to the policy of demographic change that they utilize, according to numerous human rights reports.
The Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria (VDC-NSY) had documented the killing of an elderly man, Muhyiddin Ossu, in his home in the al-Ashrafieh neighborhood of Afrin. His wife was also wounded as a result of National Army militants breaking into their home on 25 August 2019; the wife later died from her wounds.
On September 10, 2019, 73-year-old Muhammad Omar Hamdoush, from Mabata district, was subjected to severe torture after being arrested by the Military Police. He was released after his health situation deteriorated, as he suffered from fractures of the chest, shoulder, and hand, and his family took him to hospital for treatment.
In July 2018, residents of the village of Brad in the Sherawa district of Afrin found the body of Hamdi Abdo, who was kidnapped a week prior, with his wife, showing that he had been stoned to death after sustaining wounds to his hands and legs, according to a report by the Violations Documentation Center.
The al-Hamzat militia of the National Army had raided Abdo's house, beat his elderly wife and left her bleeding to death. The militants then left the house after kidnapping the man and looting large sums of money from his house, estimated at about 7 million Syrian pounds, in addition to stealing about one kilogram of gold and 10 cows which belonged to him, according to the Violations Documentation Center.
In August 2018, gunmen from the Jaysh al-Sharqiya group broke into a house in the Mahmoudiya neighborhood of Afrin. They attacked an elderly Kurdish woman after she refused to allow them to seize the house she owned and lived in.
The armed group had previously raided the same neighborhood and arrested dozens of its residents on the pretext of their belonging to the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
On November 10, 2018, three masked persons, who were later known to be members of al-Hamzat, robbed the house of Nazmi Sido Muhammad in the village of Burj Abdalo of the Sherawa district in the Afrin region.
According to the Violations Documentation Center, they chained the family at gunpoint, threatening to kill them, and stole 50,000 Syrian pounds and two pieces of gold. The 80-year-old mother, Aisha Hanan, suffocated to death within minutes after her head was covered with a bag with no ventilation.
On December 3rd of the same year, Khalil Ali Khaled was arrested on his way from his village of Basuta to the city of Afrin to sell his citrus crop. The crop and his truck were seized. He was taken to an unknown destination, and his fate is still unknown.
These violations continue on a daily basis inside the city and its villages, in light of what the residents of the region and human rights activists describe as “the silence of the international community.”
The Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria said that the various crimes committed by the Turkish-backed militants of the National Army groups or their families are unknown, as they have never been arrested or subjected to any trials as part of a systematic policy practiced by these armed groups under coverage from Turkey aiming to displace the remaining residents of Afrin.