The Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies continue to commit more crimes and violations of international law against the Syrians in all occupied areas in northern Syria.
During the first week of this year, the number of detainees increased to 29 civilians. The escalation of violations comes as an open attempt to silence and displace the remaining indigenous population or exploit them to obtain more royalties and ransoms.
The Turkish forces continue to use excessive force against the Syrians, storming cities and towns in the countryside of Aleppo, Al-Hasakah, Raqqa and Afrin regions. They continue to carry out systematic arrests and confiscating of properties, turning those cities and towns into isolated colonies. They are still imposing collective punishment on the people of Afrin region, by continuing to impose a siege for the fourth year in a row, and preventing its people from returning, as most of them live in camps in Al-Shahba area, which has exacerbated the humanitarian situation specially during the harsh winter.
Turkish-backed ‘’National Army’’ militants continue to carry out more arrests and kidnapping of civilians in order to get ransoms, as the rates of violence, crime, bombings, assassinations and finding unidentified bodies increased in Afrin region and the entire areas occupied by these militants in northern Syria.
During the last year, Afrin region has witnessed almost 700 cases of arrest, which we were able to document. While the actual number is more than that, especially since there are names that their families have reserved to mention and cases of arrest that we could not reach. In addition to killing of civilians under torture, and multiple cases of violations including organized daily looting, seizing homes and properties, olive harvests, cutting down trees.
Unleashing the chaos of the military and dozens of terrorist groups, is a deliberate Turkish policy which is being carried out by the Syrian armed groups under the name of the “Syrian National Army” of the Syrian Interim Government/ The Syrian Coalition.
Since the Turkish forces’ occupation of the Syrian territories, total of 8520 persons were killed and other 2567 were wounded. The number of detainees reached 8179 since the beginning of the Turkish incursion into northern Syria. About 5430 of them were released, while the fate of the rest is still unknown.
