ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – The Antiquities Directorate of the Autonomous Administration in Syria’s Afrin documented that 35 archaeological sites in Afrin region were subjected to excavation operations by Turkish-backed armed opposition groups.
Antiquities Directorate co-chair Salah Sino said that what has been documented does not express the true numbers of violations due to the difficulty in obtaining visual documentation for all excavation cases.
“The documentation of the occurrence of excavation operations was based on satellite images,” Sino added.
The Antiquities Directorate Afrin is currently carrying out its activities from the areas to which Afrin’s displaced fled in northern countryside of Aleppo.
Sino indicated that during 2018 and 2019, they were receiving pictures of the sites, but the armed opposition groups prevented anyone from carrying a mobile phone in these areas. He stated that the goal of the groups was to prevent the leakage of pictures of excavation and theft operations, which made it difficult to obtain photos and document violations.
“Excavations are carried out using heavy machinery, such as bulldozers and primitive digging tools, which damage 70 to 80% of the archaeological sites,” he declared.
” Turkish authorities carried out excavations at Nebi Houri site and stole the mosaic slab from it,” he said.
He added that they turned the site into a mosque to beautify its image after the looting of the site, as a way to cover up the theft under the pretext of restoring the site.
He noted that the Turkish authorities also turned the ancient Ain Dara temple into a military training ground in 2019 after it was bombed during the invasion in March 2018. Ain Dara temple is registered on the World Heritage List, according to the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.
The Afrin region includes 56 archaeological sites registered with Syrian government departments, in addition to more than 40 archaeological sites documented by the Antiquities Directorate in the Autonomous Administration of Afrin between 2014 and 2018.
“The violations against the archaeological sites are not less than the violations that civilians are subjected to in Afrin,” he mentioned.
He said that there is silence on the part of the organizations concerned with protecting antiquities and politicizing the file of violations against archaeological sites.