QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), a human rights organization, published on Tuesday an extensive investigative report in which it revealed details of the demographic change process implemented in Afrin and its countryside by Turkey.
The report was entitled “Housing Settlements in Afrin: Demographic Engineering or IDP Housing Projects?”
The report came in conjunction with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement of a new project to settle one million Syrian refugees in the areas controlled by Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) in northern Syria. “We are preparing for a new project that will allow the voluntary return of one million of our Syrian brothers whom we host in our country,” Erdogan said on May 3.
The organization started its report saying that “The UN Security Council and the European Union must take a firm stance towards the implicit and coercive demographic engineering efforts across Syria. Additionally, they must ensure that humanitarian aid, reconstruction, and early recovery efforts do not turn these demographic changes into the status quo.”
The report said that the SNA factions ”have been building one of the largest human settlements in Afrin region,” clarifying that “the settlement is warranted by the Turkish authorities and is designated for housing SNA fighters and their families in Afrin, which has historically identified as a Syrian Kurdish-majority region.”
The settlement, as STJ report, was built on Jabal al-Ahlam area (Mountain of Dreams), located south of Afrin.
Why this area specifically? The report says because of “its key strategic location, which overlooks the city of Afrin and demarcates the territories held by Turkey on the one hand, and those controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Syrian government forces, and Russian forces, which operate several military bases, on the other.”
According to the report, Rahmi Dogan, governor of the Turkish state of Hatay, is one of the key figures behind the settlement.
“Dogan granted several local and international relief organizations, as well as the Afrin City Local Council (ACLC), the green light to commence with the project’s construction over the mountain’s foothills and provide the village with services,” the report said.
The settlement started after some of the opposition armed factions, notably the Levant Front (al-Jabha al-Shamiya), submitted the project proposal to the Turkish authorities.
The report criticized some of the organizations as they have gone beyond providing public services to build villages for the fighters’ families.
“One example of this is the village of ‘Kuwait al-Rahma’, which was built with the support of the Rahma International Society and donors from Kuwait, according to the al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation, which implemented the settlement project,” the report read.
The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan revealed, in a report published on September 02, 2021, that the Kuwait al-Rahma village is only one of other villages which will be built on the Turkish-Syrian border.
According to the report, “the ACLC, is issuing allocation papers, which purportedly functions as a title deed for the buildings but not the plots of land on which they are constructed. The issuance of the document is also authorized by governor Dogan.”
The construction of Kuwait al-Rahma started in 2021 and still underway, the report said. the village is intended to cover the complete area of Jabal al-Ahlam.
The information obtained by STJ revealed that nine SNA factions, notably the Levant Front, are deeply involved in the construction project. The plan was first suggested by the Levant Front’s commander Muhanad al-Khalaf, known as Ahmad Nour.
The STJ said that the these faction’s “Sharia officials (men of religion) are disseminating information about the project to fighters and encouraging them to register their names for allocations.”
The investigations conducted by STJ revealed that several local and international organizations are involved in the project and promoting it as primarily initiated for civilians, “while only %25 of beneficiaries are civilians,” the report cited sources as saying.
With regard to the organizations that have participated in the project, the report said that “the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) is among the key organizations financing the project,” as it provided each beneficiary “with construction materials worth approximately 1,000 USD.”
Other participating organizations, as STJ reported, like Onsur and al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation, supplied the families of the fighters with monthly food shares; they built utilities, such as mosques and schools, and provided other services.
The STJ report noted that “these organizations were acting upon orders from the Turkish governor, who held several meetings with them.”
The area in which the construction is implemented is considered the largest vegetation cover in Aleppo Governorate. Unfortunately, “For the purposes of the project, large swathes of the area’s vegetation have been eradicated and replaced by concrete buildings.”
After studying the pattern of violations documented by STJ and other organizations in Turkish-controlled and predominantly Kurdish areas of northwest Syria, the STJ deduced that “these settlements could be established to be part of this systematic process of altering the demographic composition of Afrin.”
The report pointed out that as long as the “Turkish-backed forces, who have seized and rented the properties of civilians who were displaced or fled their home during Operation Olive Branch, continue to control Afrin and its surrounding areas,” civilians will not be able to return home.
Turkey alleges that settlements are built by lands owned by the Syrian state. However, as the STJ report explains, “The Syrian penal laws have described trespassing on public property as a crime punishable by law.”
Article 724 of the General Penal Code No.148 of 1949 notes that a penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment will be imposed on anyone who usurps a portion of attached or unattached public property.
The STJ attached with its report several key images showing the positions of the Turkish bases and some “illegal” villages that have been built in the region.