Turkey goes ahead building more settlements in Syria’s Afrin
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – For over two months, Turkish organizations have been constructing new settlements in Sharran district in the countryside of Afrin north of Aleppo, aiming at settling IDPs from the countryside of Damascus and Homs.
Exclusive sources told North Press that Turkish IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation has been constructing 500 houses in the northern forests in Sharran district for about two months.
They added that currently another local organization, which is not identified, supported by Kuwaiti organizations, is building another settlement west of Sharran district nearby Kafer Janneh-Sharran route, with about 150 houses in.
Construction works in the aforementioned settlements, which include mosques, schools and centers for teaching Quran, is scheduled to be finished at the end of this year to be delivered to the IDPs early in 2023.
Turkey has built settlements for years in different areas in Idlib and Afrin aiming to settle Syrian refugees living on the Turkish soil under pompous slogans considered by activists as pretexts for demographic change in Syria.
Afrin, a Kurdish city in the north of Aleppo, has been under the occupation of Turkey and its affiliated armed Syrian opposition, also known as Syrian National Army (SNA), since March 2018 following the operation “Olive Branch” which resulted in the displacement of about 300.000 people of the original inhabitants of the city and its countryside.
On September 5, Turkey announced opening “Zaim Village Compound.” A Turkish settlement supported by Palestinians close to the village of al-Muhamadiya, south Jindires, in the countryside of Afrin.
These kind of projects aim at implementing “demographic change in northern Syria,” wondering how Turkey has the right to give Turkish names to such projects.
The number of settlements built by Turkish, Kuwaiti, Palestinian and Qatari organizations in Afrin has reached about 18, distributed in Sharran, Sheikh Hadid, Jindires, Bulbul, Rajo, and the forest of the village of al-Khalidiyah near Lilon Mountain near Afrin, according to monitoring conducted by North Press.
While the number of settlements built by Turkey in Idlib governorate, northwestern Syria, has reached about 50 settlements, most of them near Mashhad Ruhin area, north of Idlib.
The number of settlements that were built in the regions of Afrin, Azaz, and Jarabulus, north and east of Aleppo, reached about 45, most of which were built between 2021 and 2022.