NEWS CENTER – The institute “Syrians for truth and Justice” shared a comprehensive document exposing the building of a illegal village in occupied Afrin by the Ihsan Relief and Development supported by the Al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation and supervised by the Kuwaiti Rahma International Society.
In this report, “Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ)” reveals the complicity of three humanitarian organizations, Syrian and international, in the illegal resettlement of fighters of the opposition’s Syrian National Army (SNA) and their families through a project advertised to support internally displaced people (IDPs) in Afrin, which has historically identified as a Syrian Kurdish-majority region.
The project was launched by the “Ihsan Relief and Development” organization in “Jindires” district, near “Kafr Safra” town. The project began in 2019 by cutting hundreds of forest trees on a local hillside[1], according to exclusive satellite footage obtained by STJ. The project was implemented on the lands seized in the aftermath of the Operation Olive Branch in 2018, during which thousands of locals were displaced. The “settlement” area is under the direct control of the “Samarkand Brigade” faction of the SNA’s First Corps, supported by Turkey.
Furthermore, STJ learned that “Ihsan” agreed with the faction to permit the organization to build the “village” and facilitate its mission without interference (based on the fact that the faction has an effective control over the area). In return, the faction’s fighters will receive a certain number of housing units. This explains why the organizations involved in the project have given 16% of houses to the fighters of the faction, most of whom are from Idlib, Syria.
In addition to the “Ihsan” organization (a program in the “Syrian Forum“), the “al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation”, under the supervision of the Kuwaiti “Rahma International Society” organization, participated in serving a part of the project and encouraging IDPs from other Syrian regions to settle in that village.
These two organizations played a key role in building Jabal al-Ahlam (Mountain of Dreams), most of which was devoted to housing fighters and their families, which is an example of forced demographic change which has occurred throughout the Syrian conflict.
The village that was established by the “Ihsan” organization consists of two residential blocks (an eastern and a western block). It is one of nine villages and human settlements, whose construction work began after the Turkish military occupation of the Afrin region, according to the description of Amnesty International which documented different patterns of violations after the occupation. The Syrian Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC), also concluded that because Turkey exercises effective control over parts of northern Syria, including both exercising military control and enforcing Turkish laws, running schools, and organizing other institutions, it has obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
According to reliable sources of STJ, all of these illegal villages were built upon the approval of the Afrin City Local Council (ACLC) and based on the instructions of Rahmi Doğan, governor of the Turkish State of Hatay, and the Turkish official responsible for this area.
2. The Geographical Location of the “Ihsan” Project
The village, referred to by some local sources as the Village of Hope, is located in forested land at the foot of a hill northeast of Kafr Safra town, in the district of Jindires. The site is known locally as “Jiai Shauti”. The land is owned by the Syrian State and not a sole proprietorship.
Currently, the area is under the authority of the Samarkand Brigade faction of the 121st Brigade. The latter is affiliated with the 13th Division in the First Corps of the Ministry of Defense of the Syrian Interim Government affiliated with the Syrian Opposition Coalition.
Satellite footage shows that the hillside was previously covered with forest trees which were cut down in the area on which the residential village was built. As for the rest of the hill and the lands surrounding the project, forests remained as before. This indicates that tree cutting was deliberate and came with the aim of building this village.
According to the testimony of a worker in the same project (the first source), the organization implementing the project, “Ihsan for Relief and Development“, cut down and distributed trees to a number of families benefiting from its relief programs in the region. The source recounted:
“The organization cut down trees at the construction site and its surroundings on the pretext that trees hinder construction work, impede heavy machinery and hamper paving the road that leads to the hill. The number of felled trees was not very large. Those trees were cut and distributed to the beneficiaries by the organization. The latter did not sell or trade trees”.
