CENTRAL NEWS
A report titled Turkeys War on Civilians has released by the Rojava Information Centre, documenting the systematic crimes being committed against civilians by both the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and its proxy militias organized under the banner of the ‘Syrian National Army’, or the ‘Turkish-backed National Army’ (TNA).
According to the report, which stated that Turkey has met near-global condemnation for its 2019 offensive into North and East Syria, more than 200,000 people were displaced within a week, while hundreds were killed.
“A number of high-profile rights violations have provoked an international response,” the report continued. “Chief among these were the field executions of leading female Syrian politician Hevrin Khalef and other civilians by Turkish-backed faction Ahrar al-Sharqiya on 12 October, along with the 13 October airstrike on a civilian convoy heading into Sere Kaniye which left 12 civilians dead.”
The crimes, being graphically documented on video and broadcast around the world, “should not be considered as isolated incidents conducted by individuals.”
Analysing the targeting of press and obstruction of information flow, the targeting of civilians, targeting civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, targeting medical staff and infrastructure and looting and property crimes; the report states that civilians are affected in all fields of attacks.
Speaking to countless sources, the Information Centre emphasised, “taken together, these testimonies paint a picture of what can be termed ‘Turkey’s war on civilians’ – a systematic attempt to make life unlivable for civilians in the zones Turkey aims to occupy, with the ultimate aim of forcibly displacing the civilian population in general and the Kurdish, Yazidi and Christian populations in particular, facilitating the installation of Turkmen and Arab militiamen and their families and the de facto expansion of Turkey’s territorial control.”
