Fires devour large swaths of forest in Syria’s Afrin
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – On Monday, fires broke out in vast swaths in a forest surrounding Sheikh al-Hadid district in the countryside of Afrin north of Aleppo, northwest Syria.
Local sources told North Press that “Fires broke out in a forest near the village of Haj Bilal in the Sheikh al-Hadidi district northwest Afrin, the fires, which continued spreading for more than ten hours, burned an area of about 20 acres.”
The sources added that firefighting teams managed to extinguish the flames after they devoured a large number of trees due to difficult geographic terrain, the difficulty in reaching the area being far from routes, and dry trees.
The sources suggested that the fire “was no accident with the aim to facilitate removing the burned trees to be sold later as firewood in markets for winter.”
Afrin has been under the occupation of the Turkish forces and their affiliated Syrian opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) since March 2018 following the so-called “Olive Branch” military operation to push away the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of protecting “Turkish national security.”
The operation caused the displacement of about 300,000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin who have been taking shelter in 42 villages and five camps in Aleppo northern countryside, locally known as Shahba region, since then.
After the occupation of Afrin, thousands of olive trees have been cut down by the SNA factions, according to press and human rights reports.