Over half a decade on from Turkey’s invasion and occupation of the Syrian Kurdish region of Afrin (Efrîn) in March 2018, Turkish-backed forces continue to commit grave human rights violations on an ethnic basis, according to a new report by the news and research organisaton Rojava Information Center (RIC).
Statistics recorded in the report show there were 2,201 crimes committed in the Afrin region in 2023 alone, along with a continued high rate of violations targeting the civilian population in the region around the towns of Ras al-Ayn (Serêkaniyê) and Tel Abyad (Girê Spî) which Turkey invaded and occupied in October 2019. The most common forms of violation are torture, or unlawful arrest or kidnapping, with members of local minority populations systematically disappeared and held for ransom by the Turkish-controlled Syrian National Army (SNA).
“The Kurdish and Yazidi populations are facing systematic persecution,” the RIC conclude on the basis of their research, while noting that Arabs seen as linked to the multiethnic Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) are also regularly targeted by the occupying forces. “Indigenous communities have endured and suffered the imposition of an occupation that shows no sign of ending, whether through continual arrests and kidnappings, or the imposition of taxes and violations of their properties.”
Crimes against women are also commonplace. Many of the multiple factions which make up the SNA subscribe to a radical interpretation of Islam. Ahrar al-Sharqiya and Sultan Murad, the two factions which RIC identify as responsible for the largest number of violations, are known to have recruited multiple former members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) into their ranks. As such, “the situation for women has consistently deteriorated since the commencement of the Turkish occupation. An atmosphere of fear has emerged, accompanied by a troubling increase in the prevalence of child and forced marriages.”
The report also explores the impact of ongoing regional and international geopolitical developments on the civilian population in the occupied regions. It offers detailed analysis of the clashes between different SNA factions which further endanger life for civilians in the affected regions; the influence of al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on these clashes and ongoing unrest throughout the region; the Syria-Turkey earthquake which claimed tens of thousands of lives throughout the region; and putative reconciliation between Ankara and the central Syrian authorities in Damascus.
The report further includes comprehensive maps showing the zones of influence of the scores of small and large factions which make up the SNA, “Despite the ‘safe zone’ rhetoric promoted by the Turkish government and repeated by many international media outlets, the realities attested to in this report necessitate the attention of the international community and human rights organisations,” the RIC conclude.
Other organisations and international bodies have corroborated the RIC’s findings. The US’s Operation Inherent Resolve Lead Inspector General Report to Congress for 2023, produced on behalf of the US forces working alongside the Syrian Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to battle ISIS influence in the region, also stated that most SNA groups “continued to recruit and pay fighters, some of whom are former ISIS members”, as well as engaging in “reportedly providing safe passage of ISIS members through the areas under their influence” all while benefiting from “funds extorted from civilians at checkpoints and by threatening or carrying out threats to detain, physically abuse, rape, or kill the individual and/or their family members.”
