Security

Imprisoned Yezidi woman suffers miscarriage in Afrin: SOHR

"We condemn this inhumane act and call on the international community to stand with the Yazidi community in Afrin and other regions of Syria."

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2022/01/11 14:50

Displaced Syrians from the northern city of Afrin hold placards during a demonstration to condemn violations by local Turkish-backed factions (Photo: Delil Soleiman/AFP).

Syria Afrin Hamza Division

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An imprisoned Yezidi woman had a miscarriage inside Ma'rata prison in Afrin after being subjected to brutal physical and psychological torture by Turkish-backed factions there, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported on Monday.

"According to sources, the Military Police handed the body of the baby to the mother of the tortured woman 'A.M.' after six months of pregnancy, where the baby was buried in the graveyard of Kaimar village," the report said.

The woman was arrested on Sept. 12, 2021, on charges of dealing with the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

The SOHR report said the woman had been arrested and released after her parents had paid ransoms.

However, she was arrested for a second time on the same charges and imprisoned "despite having a miscarriage and being subject to physical and psychological torture."

"We condemn this inhumane act and call on the international community to stand with the Yazidi community in Afrin and other regions of Syria," Murad Ismael, president and co-founder of the Sinjar Academy, told Kurdistan 24.

"Our community has suffered a genocide there too, not only in Iraq, and we are seeing the last days of Yazidi existence as a functioning society in Syria," he added.

"The few thousand Yazidis who remain in Syria are scattered and mostly displaced due to the take over of radical groups, ISIS, and other destabilizing factors concerning Syria.

Since Turkey and its Syrian militia proxy forces invaded and occupied Afrin in early 2018, women there have fallen victim to various human rights violations. These violations include kidnappings, forced marriages, and even rape.

In 2020, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria said it is investigating reports that at least 49 Kurdish and Yezidi women were detained in Ras al-Ain and Afrin by Turkish-backed groups between November 2019 and July 2020.

"Since 2019, Kurdish women throughout the Afrin and Ra's al-Ayn regions have faced acts of intimidation by (Turkish-backed) Syrian National Army (SNA) brigade members, engendering a pervasive climate of fear which in effect confined them to their homes," the report stated.

In May 2020, during clashes between rival Turkish-backed groups Hamza Division and Jaysh al-Islam in Afrin, a video went viral on social media. In the video, the Jaysh al-Islam fighters attack a detention center controlled by the Hamza Division and discover kidnapped women imprisoned there.