Turkish border guards throw a young man into Orontes River after torturing him
North-Press Agency
The Turkish Border Guards (Jandarma) have tortured the 27-year-old Abdulsalam Atreya from the village of Alfan in Hama's eastern countryside, after he and some smugglers crossed the Orontes river which marks the Syrian-Turkish border line in north-west of the Syrian province of Idlib, adjacent to Liwa al-Iskenderun (Turkish province of Hatay).
According to Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria (VDC-NSY), the family of Abdulsalam Atreya said that their son was harshly beaten and tortured by the Turkish border guards, while he was trying to cross illegally into the Turkish territories, where they "forced him to return and threw him into the waters of Orontes river although he told them that he cannot swim.”
The number of Syrian civilians killed by the Turkish border guards (Jandarma) since the beginning of the Syrian crisis has increased to 444, including 78 children and 44 women, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria (VDC-NSY) documented the killing of a woman and a child, and the wounding of 11 people, during last February, while they were trying to cross the Syrian-Turkish border, to escape the war in Idlib province.
Earlier, on 19 of last January, the Turkish border guards fired at a displaced Syrian woman from Marat al-Numan, while she was trying to cross via the village of Khirbet al-Joz on the Syrian-Turkish border, killing her and wounding two other people, according to VDC-NSY.
Two days after the previous incident, a child from Hama was also killed, and seven other people were seriously injured, by the Turkish Jandarma gun shots on the Syrian-Turkish border, near Khirbet Al-Joz.
In August 2015, Turkey built a 911km long cement wall along its borders with Syria to prevent the entry of the Syrian refugees.
In a report published last November, ‘Syrians for Truth and Justice’ said that the targeting of Syrians on the Syrian-Turkish borders and their torture and murder has become a common phenomenon practiced by Turkey, which shows no commitment to the international treaties and covenants.
Human Rights Watch accused the Turkish border guards of shooting and beating the Syrian refugees, according to a report published in May 2016.