AFRIN, Syria (North Press) – Turkish-backed armed opposition groups continue to arrest civilians and cut trees in northern Syria’s Afrin to trade their firewood, without the presence of monitoring authorities to prevent or control violations.
Turkey, along with its affiliated armed opposition groups, announced their full takeover of Afrin on March 18, 2018. The Turkish military operation in Afrin displaced more than 300,000 of its original inhabitants, 100,000 of which settled in camps and destroyed villages in Aleppo’s northern countryside.
Afrin’s olive oil sold as Turkish oil
Saleh Jamo (a pseudonym), a resident of the Mahmudiyah neighborhood in Afrin, said that the Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sharqiya group cut down nearly 350 olive trees belonging to him in the vicinity of the city last year.
Jamo was arrested because he refused to pay a royalty on his olive harvest to the groups’ leader for a month. “I was tortured and insulted just for not surrendering my rights, which I had worked hard for for many years,” he recalled.
“I was shocked when I got out of the prison; they logged my olive trees and loaded them into their trucks, and my wife and children were unable to stop them,” Jamo said.
The Turkish-backed armed opposition groups, with the beginning of the olive harvest season, imposed royalties on Afrin farmers which differed from one group to another.
A few months after its takeover of the Afrin region, Turkey opened the Olive Branch crossing, which connects Afrin with the Turkish state of Hatay.
On November 8, 2018, the crossing operated in conjunction with the olive harvest season in the area. Through that crossing, Turkey transported olive oil to its lands to export abroad as Turkish oil of Turkish origin.
At the end of January of 2020, the Spanish newspaper Público published an article about Turkey’s export of olive oil from Afrin region to the Spanish markets as Turkish-origin olive oil.
The newspaper reported that the olive oil of Syrian origin is mixed with a Turkish product before export, in addition to sticking Turkish stickers on it to make the oil appear Turkish.
Uprooted trees
In a report in late November, the Human Rights Organization in Afrin accused the Sham Legion group of cutting 3,500 olive trees in Afrin.
Afrin is of the most important Syrian areas for olive cultivation, as the number of its trees reached more than 18 million trees by the end of 2017, of which 16 million were in the process of fruiting, according to the figures of the Autonomous Administration in Afrin at that time.
In 2020, the Human Rights Organization in Afrin documented that the armed opposition groups and settlers cut down more than 72,000 trees for trafficking, and uprooted thousands of trees to construct a road between Jindires district of Afrin and the Turkish state of Hatay.
Farida Sheikho (a pseudonym), a widow from Afrin, said that at the beginning of 2020, members of the Turkish-backed Jaysh al-Islam cut down 150 olive trees that she owned in the outskirts of the city.
She said that she didn’t know the reason for cutting her trees, “They brought their chainsaws and cut them without even knowing why.”
She added that her 14-year-old-child was arrested after trying to prevent the group’s members from cutting trees. “My child threw stones at them, but they arrested him after threatening to arrest me with him in case there was any objection.”
The child spent an entire day in prison, “He came out of the prison with a pale face, red eyes and bloody feet due to torture he received. We could not do anything for fear of being killed. This is the simplest thing they do without accountability.”
During 2020, Afrin Human Rights Organization documented 58 cases of murder, including nine women, 987 people were kidnapped, including 92 women, 26 people were released.
In its latest statement issued last month, the organization stated that the fate of more than half of the kidnapped persons have remained unknown for three years.
Ibrahim Sheikho, spokesman for the Human Rights Organization – Afrin, told North Press that the violations that are taking place in Afrin amount to war crimes according to The Hague Law of 1897.
He added that the International Criminal Court must prosecute and hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable.
Rashid Muhammad (a pseudonym), a resident of a village in Jindires district in Afrin, said that members of the Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sham group arrested his cousin a year and a half ago on charges that his wife was affiliated with the Autonomous Administration.
“Several months ago they handed him over to the Turkish military police, and since then we have not received any information about him,” he added.