Syrian IDP of Tel Abyad narrates harsh details of his arrest by SNA militants
Ali Hesso, an IDP in Tel al-Samen camp, north of Raqqa – North Press
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Froman IDP camp north of Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria, and the 70-year old Ali Hesso sits in front of a tent surrounded by some roses’ seedlings, recalling the details of his arrest by the Turkish-backed armed opposition factions in late 2019.
The opposition militants argued to slaughter him despite his old age, “They beat me and wanted to slaughter me.”
In October 2019, Turkish forces supported by the Turkish-backed armed opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), launched the “Peace Spring” military operation in the area of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad.
About 300.000 original inhabitants were forced to flee their houses, as others were killed and wounded as a result of the operation.
Prior to the Turkish occupation, the father of six sons and a daughter, worked as a guard in the silos of the village of Sakhra Abdul Sheikh, he was arrested when the SNA factions took control of the village on charges of joining the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
He was terrified when he heard that they would slaughter him, the way the Islamic State (ISIS) militants used to kill their victims in their held areas is Raqqa, Hasakah, Deir ez-Zor and Aleppo countryside.
Human rights reports and local and international media, circulated names and information about a number of former ISIS members who joined the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition factions that Turkey used in several areas, including northern Syria.
At the time, Hesso realized that he was a dead no way, as long as the militants who arrested him agreed on slaughtering him.
Hesso tried to convince them that he was just a civilian, who only guarded the silos of the area, and that he was not a leader of the SDF or an official in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
He begged them not to kill him in that inhuman way, but to shot him directly instead of using the knife, he noted “I begged them not to slaughter me but to shot me to death.”
He succeeded in convincing them to leave him alive in exchange for giving them the keys of the silos, that were full of grain, equipment, and machines, as well as he pledged not to flee and stay in the area with his wife.
Only minutes after his release, the silo guard rode his motorcycle heading towards the areas held by the AANES, joining the displaced people who were fleeing the area.
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated ISIS militarily.
Hesso fears the repetition of that incident since Turkey is threating of launching a new military operation in north Syria.
On June 1, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed his threats of launching a military operation on northern Syria, and specified his targets in the two Syrian cities of Manbij and Tel Rifaat, which include many Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
The man took his family with him, and now they are living in Tel al-Samen camp north of Raqqa, few meters from the line of contacts with the Turkish forces and the opposition factions.