Turkey continues building settlements in Syria’s Afrin
ALEPPO, Syria (North press) – Local organizations, with Kuwaiti financing and Turkish coordination, continue to complete the construction of new settlements in Afrin, north of Aleppo.
A local source told North Press that Sham al-Kair Humanitarian Association, supported by Mercy International – The Association of Social Reform has been working on constructing a new settlement on the agricultural lands near the town of Sheikh al-Hadid in the countryside of Afrin for two months.
On May 3, the Turkish president disclosed about his plan to settle about one million Syrian refugees in 13 Syrian areas, which are not the areas the refugees are originally from, adjacent to the southern border of Turkey starting from Azaz in the west to Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in the east.
“We are preparing a new project for the voluntary return of one million Syrian brothers who are in our country as guests,” Erdogan said.
The area of the new settlement exceeds 30,000 square meters. It includes about 200 apartments, a mosque, a school and an institute for memorizing the Holy Qur’an, according to the source.
The settlement was constructed in coordination with Turkey and Sultan Suleiman Shah faction, locally known as al-Amshat Division. It is expected that the houses will be handed over to the faction’s members, especially those who will return from Libya after they complete their missions there, the source added.
The number of the settlements Turkey built in Idlib has reached about 50, most of them near Mashhad Rouhin area, north of Idlib, according to North Press reporters.
While 45 settlements were built in Afrin, Azaz and Jarablus, north and east of Aleppo governorate in the latter half of 2021 and the first half of 2022.
Sham al-Kair Humanitarian Association, financed by Qatar, also completed building the Qatari Village 2. It is expected to open next Thursday, in the presence of the leader of Sultan Suleiman Shah’s faction, Abu Amsha, in addition to Turkish official figures.
Turkey has been building settlements in Idlib, Afrin and northern Aleppo for years to resettle Syrian refugees there. Activists considered this as demographic change of the area.