Violence, extortion the plague held by the Afrin militia

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A worsening humanitarian crisis, rights abuses and security chaos continue to grip Afrin and surrounding militia-held areas in northwestern Syria, according to a war monitor and Kurdish politicians.

“Since Turkish forces and their loyalist factions took control of the so-called ‘olive branch’ areas, namely Afrin and its affiliated areas northwest of Aleppo, the series of humanitarian crises, violations and security chaos has worsened gradually,” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday.

At least 76 people have been killed and 57 wounded this year in areas under the control of Turkish forces and their affiliated militia groups, according to SOHR.

Turkey and its allied Syrian militia groups launched the operation codenamed Operation Olive Branch in Afrin on January 20, 2018, wresting control of the Kurdish enclave from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) two months later. The YPG is the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls northeastern Syria (Rojava).

Local and international human rights groups have repeatedly accused militia groups of committing human rights abuses against Kurdish residents of Afrin.

Abuses continued after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus.

On Thursday, a source in Afrin said members of the al-Amshat armed group detained two residents, Masoud Mohammed and Shiyar Jamil Shekho. The group also allegedly stole a car and a tractor whose owners were accused of “not paying taxes to the armed group,” Rudaw’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

When rebel forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took Aleppo in late November and began their rapid advance on Damascus, Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) groups launched an offensive against the Kurds. areas north of Aleppo. Thousands of civilians, many of them previously displaced from Afrin, fled. Some returned to Afrin.

“About three to four thousand families have returned from Tabqa, Raqqa and Manbij. I am in Aleppo right now,” Ahmed Hassan, head of the local branch of the Kurdish National Council (ENKS/KNC), told Rudaw’s Nalin Hassan.

“Now it is very easy to go from Aleppo to Afrin,” he said, adding that tens of thousands of people are waiting to return in tractors.

Some families are asked for money on their return. “They charge them,” Hassan said.

They are asked to pay up to $500 per family, according to Azad Osman, another ENKS member.

According to Hassan, checkpoints in Aleppo are managed by the SNA and the situation on the ground has not changed with the new government in Damascus.

“Aleppo is still the same. There are still charges, arrests and the prisoners have not yet been released,” he said.

People who are newly detained are taken to court where they can be released if they post hundreds of dollars in bail, according to Hassa. The courts are administered by the HTS-led transitional government.