After Turkish-led forces captured Afrin in northeastern Syria with a military operation dubbed ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in 2018, the city has been under Turkish invasion for four years.
On the fourth anniversary of the occupation of Afrin, the head of Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) Ilham Ahmed and the General Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi both issued statements calling to end the invasion, which ended with hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people becoming refugees in refugee camps in northeast Syria.
Ilham Ahmed, the President of the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), said, on Friday 18th of March, “the liberation of Afrin and areas occupied by Turkey is a debt and our moral and national responsibility.”
Ahmed shared a message on her official Twitter account.
“Four years have passed since the Turkish invasion of Afrin, and still the impacts of this occupation appear as if it were four centuries,” Ahmed said.
“The scorched-earth policy and genocide are still under way.”
“The liberation of Afrin and the occupied territories by Turkey is our moral and national responsibility, and the international community and its d legal institutions are also responsible,” Ahmed concluded.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, also shared a message on Thursday.
“The United Nations and the international community are still evading their responsibilities towards the people of Afrin,” Abdi said.
“With four years of occupation, the genocide continue in the olive city of Afrin,” he added.
“Ending the occupation and the safe return of Afrin people to their land and homes is our cause and our responsibility, as it is the cause of every believer in humanity,”