ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – The Syrian government checkpoints deployed along the road between the city of Aleppo and the villages of its northern countryside are still preventing the displaced persons from Afrin, northwest Syria, to go into the city of Aleppo, forcing some of them to pay sums of money to the smugglers or cross roads containing mines of remnants of war.
More than 300,000 people were displaced from Afrin region due to the Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed armed opposition groups’ military operation in January 2018, according to statistics of the Autonomous Administration of Afrin.
Some of Afrin IDPs are distributed in five camps, namely, Barkhudan, al-Awda, Afrin, al-Shahba and Sardam, while others are distributed in 42 villages and towns in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
Others went, via different roads, to Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods of Aleppo, while others live in cities in northeast Syria, such as Qamishli, Hasakah, Derik, Kobani, Raqqa, Tabqa and Manbij.
Afrin’s ID is prohibited
Mustafa al-Khatib, a pseudonym for a minibus driver from the town of Tel Jebbin working on the Aleppo road, said that unlike other residents in the northern countryside of Aleppo, the government checkpoints prevent everyone, whose civil registry is Afrin, from reaching Aleppo.
The town of Tel Jebbin is 22 km away from Aleppo, where there are more than 7 checkpoints belonging to the various government security forces.
The ID checks and making sure that the passengers are not from Afrin take a long time, “and every checkpoint asks us whether we have anyone from Afrin or not, and then the strict checks starts,” the driver added.
Al-Khatib wondered the reason for preventing Afrin IDPs to go to Aleppo, adding: “We do not know what their justifications are. Is holding an Afrin identity a crime according to the security forces?”
What the government checkpoints do is a clear discrimination between the communities of northern Syria, according to al-Khatib.
The government checkpoints repeatedly impose a siege on the regions of Afrin IDPs, where they prevented more than once and for months, the access of fuel, flour and basic materials to the camps and towns in which they reside, which exacerbated their suffering during winter.
Accountability of drivers
The security tightening and the prevention of Afrin identity holders from traveling have contributed to the increase in smuggling operations that often take place after coordination with the security checkpoints due to the large sums they ask for.
Every person from Afrin, who wants to reach Aleppo, pays an amount that may exceed 150,000 SYP, to cross a distance that does not exceed 30 km, according to some IDPs.
At the beginning of 2021, Diyab Habboush,55, a pseudonym for a minibus driver from the town of al-Zahra’, northern Aleppo, was arrested by the State Security Department for 15 days due to the presence of an Afrin IDP in his minibus while on way to the city of Aleppo.
The IDP was prevented from entering Aleppo, and “they asked him to return to where he came from,” according to Habboush.
Riham Husso, 37, a pseudonym for an employee of the Aleppo Electricity Company, from the town of Ebbin, in Sherawa district, south of Afrin, finds it difficult to enter Aleppo despite having a job approval to travel to and from Aleppo.
“I cannot pass through the security checkpoints until being questioned and checked. At every checkpoint, I have to get off the bus, register my name and identity, and get a number to identify me when returning,” she said.
“Traveling from the northern countryside of Aleppo has become like traveling from one country to another. This is in case the person is an employee, but the others are forced to pay money to the smugglers,” she added.