Turkish-backed Syrian militiamen kidnap six men in Afrin

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish-backed Syrian militiamen have abducted six old men in a village in Syria’s northwestern Turkish-occupied Kurdish enclave Afrin.

A source in Afrin told Kurdistan 24 that the abducted men were in Memila village in Afrin’s Raju subdistrict. According to the source, they were abducted by the Sultan Muhammad al-Fateh Brigade.

On Nov. 1, these groups kidnapped 15 people from Memila and demanded ransoms for their release. That incident followed the kidnapping of 20 people from the same village in October. Those abductees were later released after their ransoms were paid.

In October, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported that these militiamen arrested a civilian from Kamarshiyah village, also in the Raju subdistrict, for “dealing with the Autonomous Administration during its control of Afrin.”

The Autonomous Administration refers to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) which controlled Afrin until Turkey and its militia proxies invaded it in early 2018. That invasion displaced tens of thousands of civilians, mostly Kurds, from that hitherto peaceful and stable enclave. These militiamen went on to loot Afrin and subject its inhabitants to numerous abuses. 

Thousands of other Kurds in Afrin have been abducted in this way since 2018. The fate of many of them remains unknown.