QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Again, the environment in Afrin countryside comes to the fore anew amid wide-scale information being circulated on a large number of media outlets shedding light on trees being cut down by unruly armed factions affiliated with the Turkish forces.
Afrin, the Kurdish city in the northern countryside of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, has been under the occupation of Turkey since the so-called Olive Branch military operation by the Turkish forces and their affiliated armed opposition factions, known as Syrian National Army (SNA) in 2018.
Since the first days of December, there seems a surge in cutting down olive trees in Afrin.
Burdened already by human rights abuses against the remaining original people which has made Afrin a larger jail and a battleground for the competing armed factions of the SNA, life has become more calamitous there.
The operation caused the displacement of more than 300.000 of the original people of Afrin, who have been taking shelter in 40 villages and five camps in Aleppo northern countryside, locally known as Shahba region, since then.
There are about 16.000 displaced families from Afrin distributed over 42 villages and towns in the Shahba region, in addition to 1.870 families, comprising 7.500 individuals, now living in the camps of Barkhodan, Sardam, Afrin, al-Awda, and Shahba, according to the Social Affairs and Labor Board of the Afrin region, currently operating in Aleppo northern countryside.
Abduction (mostly for ransom ends), murder, enforced disappearances, bulldozing of historical and archaeological sites, and desecration of religious and holy spaces and memorials (mostly Yazidis) are common occurrences in Afrin.
However, such a gloomy reality does not end here. Nature in general and vegetation, in particular, have their share of these abominable acts and practices.
Co-chair of Afrin Judiciary Council, Suleiman Jaafar, operating since 2018 in Shahba, told North Press “Since the very first day, destruction and deforming acts were commenced in Afrin as if Turkish occupiers and their mercenaries were taking revenge on Afrin’s original people.”
In late October, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS – formerly al-Nusra Front) and its affiliates took control of Afrin from the SNA factions without performing many fights. While under constant calls, the HTS fighters withdrew from the city of Afrin and its countryside, however, its security personnel and intelligence services remain operating in Afrin and elsewhere wearing the uniform of the Hamzat Division, al-Amshat (Sultan Suleiman Shah Division) and Ahrar al-Sham. All of them operate under the SNA umbrella.
Recently, 90% of the forestry on the two sides of the road linking the village of Kafr Dali Foqani with that of the village of Gazei and a coniferous forest on Mount Hamda in northwest Afrin were reported cut down by the notorious al-Hamza Division.
A wood was said to have been set ablaze too by the same faction. The division has a record of such abominable acts; where the cutting down of 3.000 olive trees and grapevines had previously been attributed to al-Hamza.
While on the surface the cut-down pieces of wood are sold for heating among other things, this creates spaces to build up settlements instead. Notably, a ton of wood is sold for between 100 and 135 US dollars to be used as firewood.
From another perspective, while settlements are grossly built in places that used to have green vegetation, uprooting olive trees is a big blow – though a silent one – to locals being deprived of a main resource of income to earn a decent living.
In a region controlled by an iron fist, only a little comes to the surface and the information remains sketchy. Nonetheless, in the village of Khelilaka in Afrin’s Rajo district, 20 olive trees owned by Nidal Sheikh Mousa were cut down. In the same relation, 200 olive trees belonging to the citizen Jamo Omar from Sherawa, south of Afrin, were cut down by militants of Sham Legion.
The same scenario was reported in the village of Kafr Janneh in the Sharran district where militants of the influential and unbridled Sultan Murad Division cut down 100 olive trees belonging to Rohat Asaad.
In the village of Kafr Shil, two km west of Afrin city, olive groves were partially and completely cut off by unknown gunmen, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.
Residents of the ancient village that dates back in history depend largely on their olive trees to earn a living have filed a complaint to the SNA, but they have not yet receive any reply.
According to Jaafar, Afrin’s spectacular scenery is sought to become a barren desert, “Olive trees which used to earn an Afrinian a living and is the main income are uprooted disdainfully. Fruit and non-fruit trees are not spared,” he said.
Militants of Sultan Murad Division also cut down about 60 olive trees belonging to Ahmad Hamdoush in the village of Kafr Janneh, as well as they cut about 70 olive trees belonging to Sheikh Mousa resident of the village of Qastal Kishk, according to eyewitnesses from the villages.
Militants of Sultan Murad faction cut down about 60 olive trees belonging to Ramzi Omar, and 140 olive trees belonging Muhammad Khalil and Muhammad Ali Haj Hannan of the village of Mareskeh in the district of Sharran.
The two villages of Basoufan and Sinka – mostly Yazidi –in Sherawa and Sharran districts respectively were hit by factional militants.
Militants of the Sultan Malik Shah Division cut down about 35 olive trees belonging to Hassan Jawish from his field near the village of Baarava, overlooking Maydanki Lake, in Sharran district.
Days ago, Kuwaiti Ministry of Social Affairs announced it halted constructing projects in Syria. Kuwait had the lion’s share in funding settlements in Afrin the matter drew widespread popular discontent and rejection from people in northeast Syria.
Informed sources told the Kuwaiti al-Jarida newspaper that the ministry issued a circular demanding charity to stop issuing approvals for philanthropist construction projects in Syria allegedly to show the “humanitarian” side of Kuwait.
In late September, a delegation of Kurds from Afrin visited the Palestinian Consul in Erbil in Kurdistan Regional Government, Nazmi Hazouri, and handed over a letter protesting against a Palestinian foundation building housing units in Afrin. “Wafaa al-Mohsenin” was said to have delivered 34 housing units to displaced Syrian Arabs in Afrin’s Jindires.
The Kurdish city of Afrin delegation said such breaches “serve the agenda” of some groups in the name of Palestine against the interest of Kurds.
However, while antiques are stolen, vegetation reduces and demographic change proceeds neither NGOs nor concerned countries lift a finger, “We consider such an inaction a complicity with occupiers and its mercenaries in everything that takes place in Afrin right now,” Ja’far noted.