KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – Elderly displaced people from the countryside of Tel Abyad who live in Kobani, northern Syria, narrate their suffering since their displacement from their homes two years ago.
In October 2019, Turkish military and its affiliated armed factions invaded Tel Abyad area, north Syria, and displaced the indigenous people.
The 67-year old Adnan Haj Muslem, a displaced person from the village of Tel Vander, 7 km west of Tel Abyad, recounts the details of his displacement two years ago, and how Turkey and its loyal factions displaced the residents of his village after occupying the area.
“We want to return if we had the chance, if there were no danger, injustice, and threats. Our living conditions were better there,” Haj Muslem said.
“The Turkish-backed armed Syrian opposition factions have taken control of our agricultural land and 400 hectares of my relatives’, while the owners of these properties reside in rented houses,” he added.
It is not safe to return
The Turkish-controlled area in north Syria, is witnessing violations against the remaining residents, which makes the return of the displaced unsafe, according to human rights reports.
Haj Muslem said that some residents of the village of Tel Akhdar, adjacent to his village, returned to their village, but soon fled again because of their arrest and assault, as large financial ransoms were taken from them by the factions.
Threats to areas of displacement
The 72-year-old Muhammad Haj Omar, an IDP from Tel Abyad who resides in Kobani, said he has displaced with his eight children three times within the years of Syrian war.
He recalls how Syrian government warplanes bombed his city and how the militants of Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra Front entered it with the beginning of the Syrian crisis, ro be controlled then by the Islamic State (ISIS).
“We want to return if we had the chance. If there were no danger, injustice, and threats,” Haj Omar said.
“But right now, we cannot go back, even if they paved the way for us in gold, we saw what they did with Afrin returnees, they assaulted them, imprisoned them, and demanded ransoms from them.”
“We are afraid to return, it is not safe, as long as Turkey, the terrorists, the Nusra Front and the Free Army are there, they all hate us,” he added.
Tired of displacement
The 80-year-old Darwish Khalaf, hails from the village of Tel Vander, remembers how they were forced to sleep in the open and among agricultural lands for six days while they were displaced from their village and heading towards the town of Jalabiya.
“We stayed for six days, sleeping in the open in the southern villages near the highway, then we returned to Kobani, each three families shared a house,” Khalaf said.
About 1,200 other families live in the Tel Abyad IDP camp, which was established by the AANES nearly three years ago in the village of Tel al-Samen, north of Raqqa, while the other families are distributed among the cities and towns of northern and eastern Syria.
The70-year-old Khanem Darwish a displaced woman from the countryside of Tel Abyad, said “Turkey has wronged us, it targeted us with shells and bombs, We fled and left our homes, the cemeteries of our ancestors, and our soil.”
“We are tired of displacement and want to go home, and to be buried in the soil of our land, it is our property and our village and there our dead rest,” she added.