CENTRAL NEWS – The crimes of the Turkish occupier did not stop by attacking Afrin’s lands. Rather, it reached the point of violating the city’s identity by following a policy of demographic change with the cover and support of some associations and organizations that claim humanity.
Since the occupation of Afrin, Turkey has begun a wide Turkification process through the establishment of Turkish institutions, the imposition of the Turkish language and the raising of the Turkish flag, leading to the most dangerous among them, which is the construction of settlements on Afrin lands in order to change the demographic structure of the Kurdish-majority rregion.
Violation of international laws
The Kurds made up more than 95% of the total population of the city of Afrin, but this percentage gradually began to decrease until it reached less than 25% after the attack of the Turkish occupation on the city on January 20, 2018, as a result of its intentional commission of the most heinous crimes against them through its mercenaries to force them to emigrate amid international silence despite the existence of deterrent international laws that stipulate that this approach is a war crime against humanity.
The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states in Articles (8,7,6) that the deportation or forcible transfer of a population, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, constitutes a heinous crime against humanity. Humanitarian organizations affirm that any displacement of the people, in the absence of any convincing or compelling reason, is an act hostile to all international laws that rises to the rank of war crimes that must be confronted and the perpetrators held accountable, but in the situation in which Afrin is living, which is distinguished by its historically Kurdish specificity, these treaties were not applied to deter the occupier.
The Human Rights Organization Afrin – Syria has documented, during the four years of the occupation, kidnapping of more than 8,063 civilians, and more than 655 civilians lost their lives, 90 of whom were under torture, and more than 696 wounded as a result of the Turkish bombing, in addition to the destruction of more than 60 archaeological sites and shrines and a place of worship by the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation, in an effort to end all signs of the Kurdishness and link Afrin with Turkey.
Brotherhood political agendas with humanitarian cover
In the context of changing the demographics of the city, associations formed in Turkey and active in the areas it occupies, in cooperation with Brotherhood organizations, are working to build settlements to settle non-indigenous residents of the Turkmen and Arab components, in addition to the families of mercenaries. What are these associations and organizations and their motives for financing such settlement projects in Afrin, at a time when the displaced Syrians inside the camps are suffering from tragic humanitarian conditions, especially those of Idlib camps – which are controled by the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries – adjacent to Afrin?
The Qatari, Kuwaiti and Palestinian Brotherhood associations are the main arm of the Turkish occupation in financing and facilitating the process of building settlements on Afrin lands, most notably the Living in Dignity Association, the White Hands Association and the White Helmets, in addition to the Cooperative Association, the Qatari-Turkish Al-Bayan Association, and the Qatari Atta Without Borders Association.
The White Hands Association, with a Brotherhood orientation, was formed by Turkey and some Syrians were brought into its management to cover up the objectives of the occupation. 09/24/2014 I obtained a license for the Antakya office, which is concerned with implementing Turkish policies in the areas of northern Syria occupied by Turkey and its mercenaries.
This association is currently working on building mosques in Afrin, especially in the Yazidi villages in Afrin for displacing the Yazidis. Work is being done on this scheme under the name “Noor Al-Huda Project to Build Mosques.”
This association implements Turkish policies through the support it receives from Kuwaiti associations, and it opened a school in the village of Shurba in Mobata district in cooperation with the Association of the so-called White Hearts around the world from the Arab State of Egypt, as well as opened a Sharia school in the area of Jindirsê in Afrin countryside, next to the village of Basma settlements in Shadireh village in Afrin countryside.
Currently, the so-called “White Hands” association is working to open a school in the name of “Imam al-Khatib” in Jindirsê district.
Imam al-Khatib schools are also called “Imam Khatib High School.” It is an official secondary education in Turkey (and preparatory education) that graduates imams. İt is an extension of religious education in the Ottoman Caliphate. Imam Hatip schools operate under the General Administration of Religious Education (Turkish: Din Eğitimi Genel Müdürlüğü) of the Ministry of National Education (Turkish: Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı) in Turkey. The results of some research revealed that the prevailing view in Turkish society is that they are “educational institutions supported by religious culture” and not “vocational schools.”
As for the Syrian Civil Defense Association, known as the “White Helmets”, it operates in areas under the control of the Turkish occupation, and was established in 2013 as well. As for the “Living in Dignity” Association for the People of Palestine 48, this association was also established in 2013 in Turkey with the support of Kuwaiti and Palestinian parties, with the aim of settling more than 600 Palestinian families in housing complexes it is working to build in villages belonging to the city of Afrin.
This association also provided support to the organizations of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Foundation to build 7 settlement villages in order to settle the families of mercenaries loyal to Ankara in settlements located on Jabal Sheikh Mohammed north of Kafr Safra town, Jindirês, Jabal Shoti, Jabal Qazqli road, north of Kafr Safra town, Shih, Be’ir and Shiroa.
There is also an organization called “Watan”, which was officially established in Turkey in 2012 and is managed by Syrians and Turks, but its work dates back to before that, specifically in 2006, and the other is working on settlement projects, building mosques and schools, and bringing Syrians into its administration is nothing but a Turkish policy to give it a Syrian character and give legitimacy to the Turkification taking place in Afrin.
Also, there are organizations that were established inside Syria, and are exploited by Turkey to implement its policies, including the so-called “Al-Amin Organization”, which opened last November a school named “Martyr Muhammad Amin” in Rajo district. The organization says that it named itself after the young man, “Amin Harsoni,” who was shot dead by Damascus government forces in the city of Ariha, south of Idlib, but this organization is active in Afrin and not in the city from which the young man hails and was killed in 2012, which is currently under the control of Turkey and its loyal groups.
As for the Qatari efforts, it had taken a supportive position from the beginning to Ankara during its attack on the city of Afrin in 2018, and it continued to support settlement plans through the activities of the Brotherhood associations “Al-Bayan and Giving Without Borders” that finance settlement projects.
Settlements and their distribution
The occupier began its first settlement projects in mid-November of 2018, after announcing the formation of a cooperative association of Ghouta settlers, as a settlement was established in the name of “Al-Qarya Al-Shamiya” in relation to the mercenaries of the al-Jabha Al-Shamia east of the occupied city of Afrin, on the mountain slopes west of the town of Maryamin, west of the city of Afrin. The project was funded by Gulf Brotherhood associations.
The Qatari-Turkish “Al-Bayan” Association sponsored the establishment of a settlement in the village of Afrazah in the Mobata district of Afrin countryside, in the square where the Newroz celebrations were held.
On September 24, 2020, the Turkish occupation authorities supported the “White Helmets” organization to seize the records of the indigenous people in the Ashrafieh neighborhood owned by Mahmoud Kalash, Hanan Nasser and Muhammad Ali from the village of Qibar, in order to establish a camp for the families of mercenaries in it.
The Yazidi villages were also not spared from the Turkish occupation project, as it began on November 12, 2020, to work on the establishment of a settlement that includes 70 housing units called “The Cooperation Camp.” Its construction was supervised by the Turkish occupation authorities and funded by Qatari and Kuwaiti Brotherhood associations, and a sum of money was provided $200,000 for the settlers in those housing units.
On January 27, 2021, the occupation in Shiye and Rajo district supported and financed the mercenaries of “Sultan Suleiman Shah”, known as Al-Amshat, to establish three settlement complexes along the border strip extending from the village of Jagla and the plain of Shadia village in Rajo district, to settle 300 families from mercenaries who fought in Libya.
In addition to the construction of apartments on the banks of the Afrin River in the city center on January 4, 2021, with the support and funding of relief organizations.
On April 2, 2021, the so-called “Syrian Forum” headed by Ghassan Hito, the former head of the so-called Interim Coalition government, announced that an institution called “Al Ihsan for Relief and Development” headed by Baraa Al-Samoudi, had started implementing a project to build 247 housing units in a mountainous area. Known as “Jay Shawty” near Mount Qazqli in the vicinity of the village of Kafr Safra in Jindirês district, the project aims to build a model of a settlement village in a mountainous location near the village of “Hajj Hasna”, after cutting down trees in it.
It is noteworthy that the “Syrian Forum and Al-Ihsan Foundation for Relief and Development” are cooperating organizations and have a close relationship with the Turkish occupation, and they have offices in Turkey.
One of the strangest cases of settlement is the settlement of Palestinians in Afrin, where the Association “Living in Dignity for the People of Palestine 48” established a settlement that includes 99 housing units under the name “Basma” in the Yazidi village of Shadireh in Shirawa district to settle Palestinian families who were brought by Turkey from the Palestinian camps in Syria Including Yarmouk camp.
And between the towns of Qibar and Khalidiya in Sherawa district, a so-called “Sham Charity” association, a Kuwaiti-Palestinian association, was established, with the participation of some Turkish organizations working in northern Syria, to build a settlement village under the name “Kuwait al-Rahma”.
The Turkish occupation has also deliberately settled Turkmen families along the border strip extending from Shara district to Bulbul, Jindirês district and even Rajo district, and established dozens of settlements.
Where settlements were built in (the village of Muhammadiyah and Deir Ballut in the district of Janders, in addition to the establishment of settlement units on the archaeological hill of Jindirês district and near the village of Yalanquz, the village of Jelma, Diwan Tahtani, Kulke and Iska) and is supervised by the Turkish “Afad” association, which provides all financial support to the settlers.
On March 29 of this year, the so-called “White Hands” association inaugurated the settlement of “Basma” village to complete the second phase of settlement construction, bearing in mind that the settlement was built on seized agricultural land owned by Z.K of Shadera. Its area is estimated at 10,000 square metres.
As for the Qatari Ataa Without Borders Association, it seeks to encourage families to settle within the settlements established by the Turkish occupation with the support of Brotherhood associations.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 270,000 people from the families of the Turkish occupation’s mercenaries, the displaced from the countryside of Damascus, Hama, Homs, Idlib and western Aleppo, have been resettled within the framework of deals between Turkey and Russia, within the homes and properties of the people of Afrin, and in camps established near the city of Afrin (Mohammediya village – Jindires, Afraz village – Mobata, Rajo, Bulbul, Kafr Jannah village, Derswan village, and other areas in the city).
