Introduction:
Families who have recently returned to Afrin, northwest Syria, face systematic violations like looting money in order to return to their homes and being threatened of arrest on previous stereotypical charges.
40 families in the villages of Sanareh, Anqaleh and Hikjah that follow Sheikh al-Hadid/Shiyeh district are being prosecuted and arrested for not being able to pay the imposed royalties that estimated to thousands of dollars. Other families who descended from same villages, remained stuck in Jindires district because of fear of humiliation for being unable to pay the amounts imposed unlawfully.
The “Suleiman Shah” faction, also known as “al-Amshat”, one of the factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army [SNA], imposes excessive royalties on the inhabitants of villages under its control in Afrin. It then detains members of families who are unable to pay the money, and requires paying the royalties with additional amounts to release them and restore their homes and fields.
In 2018, a military operation by Turkey and the anti-Bashar al-Assad National Army, called “Olive Branch” caused the flee of some 300 thousand families, and other families preferred or were unable to migrate farther than northern countryside of Aleppo.
Following the new military operation of the SNA so called “Dawn of Freedom”, allied to the operation “Deterrence of Aggression” by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in late November, the SNA factions launched an attack on Afrin displaced people quartering areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo, who already fled Turkish attacks and SNA violations.
Once again, the displaced families headed in new displacement corridors towards east of Euphrates or Aleppo City. Some families preferred to return to their homes in Afrin, the decision that left them under huge pressure as they were ordered to pay exorbitant money in exchange for not arresting their members on charges of affiliating with the former Autonomous Administration or the SDF.
Meanwhile, factions of the SNA forbid the displaced people from other areas of Syria in Afrin from returning to their homes, years after they were forcibly evacuated from their original homes under agreements between the former regime and its opponents with Russian and Turkish mediation.
In the past six years, the Kurdish and Yazidi people who remained in Afrin have been subjected to countless human rights violations by factions that committed systematic dominance and persecution, and imposed unofficial discriminatory and repressive orders in small sized areas of control, which led to fragmentation, isolation and blockade of Afrin.
INSIGHT obtained quick testimonies from displaced people who arrived to Jazira (Hasakah and Qamishli), some of whom conveyed their relatives messages, who chose to return to their hometown in the area controlled by the “Suleiman Shah” and other pro-Turkish SNA groups.
Appeals and testimonies
On Tuesday, December 18, militants of “Al-Amshat” conducted raids on Kurdish families’ homes in the villages of Hikjah, Sanareh and Anqaleh, that follow Shiyeh district, and threats to arrest them if they do not pay the imposed royalties.
The raids led the men and juveniles of the families, that did not pay ransoms in exchange for not being arrested and be allowed to stay at their homes, to flee.
The first witness, citing relatives in Anqaleh village, said that those who paid the new royalty stayed at their home, but those who could not pay it “either hid or left the area.”
According to the witness, the new royalty ranges from $1 per tree for those who have previously stayed in the village (did not leave Afrin in 2018), to $25 per tree for those who have recently returned or who have not yet returned but appointed their relatives as proxies on their field.
“They provoke people and cause them pain,” he said, “we do not earn $25 of a single tree, and the returnees were displaced, how will they pay such amounts of money?”
The second witness estimated the number of families affected by the raids and did not pay the new royalty in the three villages, whose men have fled, between 40 and 50 families.
The witness himself said: “They arrest the members of those families and impose on them royalty to be released, but how will they pay if they do not have such amounts? this issue must be resolved “.
A third witness from Arandeh village, also follow Shiyeh district, recounted that returnees of his village (who originally descended from his village but were displaced in 2018 and returned recently) have not yet arrived at their homes, “the gunmen are charging $ 4,000 for each car and between $ 10,000 and $15,000 for restoring their houses”.
The witness, who claimed to know the original/Kurdish families in the area, said the families who returned from the town of Fafeen in Shahba, which has been a shelter for displaced people since 2018, have remained in Jindires and are unable to reach their homes. He added: “The families cannot go farther than Shiyeh district, but they did not return to their homes and fields.”
A fourth witness sent audio chat clips between him and people from his village, “I told them (recent returnee) to form a delegation and go to Damascus or Idlib, the road is open to there. They (SNA factions) have nothing to do with fighting the previous regime, they are just thieves.”
But the fifth witness, who visited the region in the past days, said that “we must realize that the royalties are frequent and have been re-imposed endlessly for five years.”
He added: “The circumstances we went through were harsh, no one dared to talk against factions even with a complaint.”
Another witness said she was in contact with families in the three villages and recounted that some men and juveniles were threatened to get arrest, and as they did not have a safe shelter, they slept in the wild among the trees in the cold weather.
She added “Even if the families paid the royalty and restored their homes and trees, the factions will impose a new royalty a month later or less”.
The appeal of another displaced people
Insight was briefed on an appeal from Syrian displaced people (they were displaced from Ghouta, countryside of Damascus, Qalamoun and other areas to Afrin), that they were not allowed to leave Afrin.
The text of the appeal indicated that it was issued by leaders and activists among Syrian displaced people who were forcibly brought to Afrin as a result of the “Green Bus Agreements”, which evacuated people who opposed Assad from Ghouta, Qalamoun and etc.
The “Joint Force”, a formation from the SNA that is composed of “al-Amshat” and “al-Hamzat”, prohibited the departure of a convoy of dozens of Arab families that descended from Ghouta, Damascus, and Qalamoun, but were displaced to Shiyeh in 2018, to return to their original homes after the fall of Assad regime.
The appeal confirms the previous testimonies, with a discrepancy in estimating the imposed royalties. “The people of Sheikh al-Hadid\Shiyeh and its villages who’ve recently returned from Shahba, Tal Rifaat and Aleppo are prohibited to enter their homes, villages and districts, unless they pay $1,500 as a royalty, which forced the families to remain in Jindires as they cannot pay such amounts”.
Two activists from Afrin confirmed reports that the “Joint Force” had prohibited the Arab displaced people from leaving Shiyeh and its villages, while the appeal stated that the homes of Afrin’s original people were “inhabited by those Arab displaced who are also prohibited from leaving”.
The appeal to the military leadership in Damascus: “.. These factions (al-Amshat, al-Hamzat, Sultan Murad, and al-Sharqiya…) are known for mercenarism, terrorism, banditry and criminality and continue to commit the most egregious violations against the civilians, and they are as criminal as lackeys and henchmen of the former Assad regime. Their security branches (political security and military police…) still detain people and their prisons are overcrowded with detainees; in addition to secret prisons similar to ‘Sidnayah’ in the means of torturing and eliminating the detainees”.
Increased threats
Turkey claimed that it established “safe zones” for the return of refugees in areas it had controlled with SNA in 2018 and 2019, in Afrin and, Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad respectively. The ‘safe zone’ in which the Independent United Nations Commission of Inquiry and reports of international organizations such as the Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and local organizations documented the violations that were being committed, and a bad record of factions deployed in aforementioned areas.
Within the operation “Deterrence of Aggression” announced by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allied factions late last November, the SNA attacked Tal Rifaat, surrounding villages and camps in its vicinity, which were under the control of an authority loyal to the Autonomous Administration of north and east Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces, in its operation so called “Dawn of Freedom”.
Some civilians had access to corridors that headed to east of Euphrates and Aleppo, though they were not spare from robbery, and verbal and physical insults, within the convoys.
Insight obtained quick testimonies from displaced people who arrived east Euphrates (200,000 persons according to local sources) in which they recounted that they faced hard conditions and attacks during the evacuation.
Some of the displaced people who came with the convoy and arrived to Qamishli said that the SNA armed men were attempting to attack the people throughout the route in the safe corridors in their areas of control, but the HTS protection members pushed them back on every attempt.
Some of the tragic repercussions of the forced journey of evacuation were: the death of an infant because of cold, death of another infant immediately after his birth during the journey, and a man killed himself as the SNA members were harassing the people who left Shahba and then trapped them.
The context of the events indicate that the attackers could have carried out forced evictions and granted civilians a deadline to leave, similarly to what happened in other conflict areas in the Middle East. Rather, they preferred treacherous practices against people protected under international law, as what had been done at Tal Rifaat Hospital and what is happening to the returnees to Afrin currently. Political declarations close to the SNA welcomed their return, but the practices on the ground were totally contrary to customary international law.
The SNA has failed to comply with the commitments it made to the international community along Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. It has failed to comply with the means and methods provided by the international humanitarian law to minimize the damage to civilians in Tal Rifaat, Shahba, and in Manbij, which it attacked later.
Documentations
INSIGHT documented the killing of 27 civilians and the injury of 12 others by the SNA in Afrin, Shahba and Manbij during the first half of December, the second week after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The SNA killed 22 men and 5 women, including 3 activists, and injured 5 men, 6 women and 1 child.
The numbers do not include neither the militaries who were killed in the engagements, nor the people who died of cold and cruel conditions after eviction from Shahba.
The monitoring group of INSIGHT documented the arbitrary arrest of 90 civilians (87 men and 3 women) by SNA factions in the northern countryside of Aleppo, and Afrin.
Videos posted by the SNA fighters or close to them for the purpose of showing revenge, document the verbal and physical assault of a medical staff at Tal Rifaat Hospital, that are supposed to be protected under international humanitarian law. Another clip showed that two injured military captives were killed at Manbij Hospital, although they were not able to fight.
The SNA factions systematically targeted the Kurds in Manbij with killing, looting and arresting. Then, they violated the rights of Arab people who worked in the Autonomous Administration institutions.
They Killed three women: Qamar al-Soud, Aisha Abd al-Qader, and Iman. Those women were members of ‘Zanobia Women’s Assembly’ that was founded in June, 2021, to consolidate the views of women from different backgrounds who were in ISIS-controlled areas and then worked in AANES institutions.
A threat of permanent occupation
Turkey appointed a Turkish governor in the “Local Council” of Afrin, thus it is responsible for what happens in the city and districts under the control of its affiliated SNA factions. Turkey effectively controls every civilian or military authority in Afrin, and that practices do not distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects, they amount to systematic and deliberate targeting of Kurdish civilians.
International humanitarian law stipulated that the occupation of an area during a temporary conflict with its administration should be in favor of the native local population and maintain the pre-occupation situation, including refraining from demographic change.
Although there were no long-term clashes and hostilities in Shahba area during the military operation against Assad regime forces in Aleppo, the people who stuck there or chose to return to Afrin are subjected to violations, including murder, arrest, and theft that followed the seizure of property.
International laws and customs may not guarantee protection for all civilians and civilian objects during massive clashes and shelling, but they undoubtedly prohibit the direct targeting of civilians and the non-discrimination rule between military objectives and civilian objects.
“al-Amshat” commit violations such as: looting money from Kurdish returnees and preventing Arab displaced families from returning to their original homes to raise funds in a prohibited manner, but not to achieve military progress, therefore both individuals and the leaders of the group are responsible.
Instead of having Afrin’s resources, most notably olive season and immigrant remittances from abroad to their families, geared towards ensuring the livelihood and basic needs of families, people feel compelled to pay them to armed groups to mitigate threats to their lives, rights and freedom.
INSIGHT warns that hate speech circulating after the fall of the Assad regime threatens to undermine civil peace and suggests that there are real and imminent risks of a genocide or similar crimes. The organization calls on communities to promote tolerance between religious and ethnic communities and to leave accountability we to official judicial authorities, which call to strengthen their efforts and mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable and bring justice to victims of crimes and violations and their families.
We call Turkey to respect human rights and not to generalize its dispute with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on its territory, to the north of Syria, and not to impose its approach to non-Turkish components within its borders on the emerging Syrian situation.
We call on the transitional authorities in Damascus and the SDF to understand the next phase and seek to stop Turkey’s intervention, which is prohibited under international law and customs among States, in order to allow for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between the Syrian parties.
The transitional government in Damascus must explicitly declare its disagreement with any Turkish and Israeli military operations on its territory.
Since the promotion of peace, stability and cooperation among nations is the spirit and purpose of international law, we call on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to put pressure on Turkey, which have influential diplomatic relations in the international arena and controls the Syrian file, to stop threatening the northern Syrian regions with continued hostilities following the fall of the Assad regime.
