QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, the news outlet al-Monitor published a report on the various human rights abuses and demographic change carried out by Turkish forces and Turkish-backed groups in the areas they occupy in Syria’s Afrin.
The newspaper spoke to Kurdish sources who had suffered human rights abuses, including one 63-year-old woman who witnessed the suicides of ten young women who had been raped in detention by the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad Brigade, a component of the Syrian National Army (SNA) which has controlled Afrin since the invasion of the region by the aforementioned groups in 2018.
The report also documented, through an anonymous Turkish researcher who visited Afrin several times, the common practice of theft and occupation of civilian homes by Turkish-backed groups, and the division of neighborhoods into the various areas controlled by the military factions.
A militant from the Sultan Suleiman Shah Division anonymously told al-Monitor that the commander of the division, known as Abu Amsha, takes his orders for the Sheikh Hadid area which his group controls not from the Syrian National Army chain of command, but directly from Turkish intelligence.
Al-Monitor also included testimony from former and current opposition militants critical of the factions’ practices which include theft, rape, and murder, and added that many of those who blow the whistle or criticize these abuses are often stripped of Turkish residency and threatened by members of the factions.