A pregnant woman in Afrin has been tortured to death at a Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT) prison according to sources in the region, ANHA reports.
The woman’s name was Nemet Behjet Shêxo (32). She and her husband Xelil Nesan (36) had recently been abducted by Turkish proxies from outside Qenber Hospital in Afrin city, northeast Syria, which has been controlled by Turkey and the armed militias it supports since 2018.
Nemet Behjet Shêxo and Xelil Hesan, identified as being from Qûpê village in the Raco district of Afrin, were reported to have been interrogated for six hours and repeatedly tortured.
Sources said that MIT agents threatened Nemet Behjet Shêxo’s family and told them they would abduct them as well if they revealed the true cause of their daughter’s death. The MIT agents forced them to say that their daughter had died of health problems subsequent to becoming pregnant in June.
The fate of Nemet Behjet Shêxo’s husband, Xelil Hesan, is still unknown.
According to the Human Rights Organisation of Afrin, Syria, at least 7,810 people have been abducted in Afrin, the fate of 3,000 people is ‘unknown’, and nearly 50 people are being held in Turkish prisons. It has been reported that some of the missing people were abducted by members of the Turkish intelligence units and some by Turkish-backed mercenaries.
In a report it published last year the UN also detailed extensive rights violations that had occurred in Afrin. The report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria confirmed that the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) has been committing war crimes in Afrin and Ras al-Ayn (Serêkaniyê) which included abductions, disappearances and gender-based sexual violence. Turkey was also held responsible for such actions.
