Turkish-backed militias kidnap Kurdish civilians in north Syria's Afrin
AFRIN, Syria (Kurdistan 24) – Local activists told Kurdistan 24 and other media on Thursday that Turkish-backed militias from the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA) have kidnapped more than a dozen Kurdish civilians in Syria’s northwest region of Afrin, including women, children, and the elderly.
“Turkish-backed groups abducted the following civilians from the countryside of Afrin: Kamiran Kaso, Mohammad Rashid, Abdulrahman Mustafa, Samia Alo, Rashid Mustafa, 80-year-old Mustafa Ahmad, 82-year-old Abdulhamid Shekho, and Fahmi Abdo,“ the Syria-based war monitor Afrin Post reported, adding that the Turkish-backed fighters also “arrested“ three other civilians in Afrin city and demanded that their families pay ransoms before they would be released.
Additionally, an activist living on the outskirts of Afrin, who asked that his name be concealed for fear of reprisals from the groups, told Kurdistan 24 that Turkish intelligence forces and Syrian militiamen launched a raid on nearby Kotana village and kidnapped another group of civilians that included women and old men.
The activist added that an ethnic-Arab fighter originally from Deir al-Zor kidnapped a Kurdish civilian named Ali Haydar Abdo in the Jinderes district and demanded his family pay a ransom of 10 million Syrian pounds (about $10,000).
Multiple human rights and media reports have documented large numbers of credible claims that, since the occupation of Afrin in March 2018, Turkish-backed armed groups have regularly committed various violations and war crimes, primary among them ethnic cleansing, kidnapping, extortion, murder, rape, and the looting and destruction of property.
In February 2019, the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a report charging that armed groups in Afrin were guilty of war crimes including “hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, and pillage.” It stated that “the most common violations perpetrated in Afrin involved frequent abductions by armed groups and criminal gangs.”
As recently as early March of this year, the commission again released evidence that it had found reasonable grounds to believe that the militias “perpetrated the war crime of murder and repeatedly committed the war crime of pillaging, further seriously contravening the right to enjoyment of possessions and property.”
Read More: UN: Turkish-backed groups carry out war crimes, target Kurdish women
The UN concluded that “if any armed group members were shown to be acting under the effective command and control of Turkish forces, these violations may entail criminal responsibility for such [Turkish] commanders who knew.”
Forces on the ground continue to make arrests and other abductions regularly in or around Afrin city. In one typical incident that occurred in May 2019, the al-Jabha al-Shamiyyah group captured six people, including one woman, in the village of Maabatli who they accused of “dealing with YPG [People’s Protection Units],” UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
Currently, over 100,000 residents are still estimated to be in the area, living under the harsh security and economic conditions they have faced since Turkey took control of the Kurdish-majority region.
Editing by John J. Catherine