Syria: Turkish troops and Islamists are driving the Kurdish population out of their villages

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) raises serious accusations against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His troops, in cooperation with Islamist fighters, have driven about 900 Kurds out of their villages in northern Syria since Monday, as the Göttingen-based human rights organization reported on Thursday. The Kurdish civilians were able to escape from the attackers, but were forced to leave their villages Tal Batal and Kuaibe in the so-called Shahba region to the north of the embattled city Aleppo.

“While the international media are focusing on the military operation to liberate Mosul, Erdogan is pursuing his interests in Syria,” criticized Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East expert, who just returned back from research visits in Northern Syria and Northern Irak. “After decades of civil war and a policy of displacement in the own country – due to which 3,876 Kurdish, but also Christian and Yazidi villages were depopulated and about four million people were expelled – the inhumane strategy is continued in the neighboring country. Thus, the Kurds, Christians, Yazids, and other minorities are increasingly at risk.”

Those who are expelled by the Islamists militias and the Turkish army can find refuge in the autonomous region of Afrin in the north-west of Syria, which is controlled by the Kurds. The refugee camp “Robar” was established there. It is located only 18 kilometers away from the Turkish border, and it is hardly possible to reach the area, because the Turkish government has closed the border crossing to Syria. “Despite this blockade policy, the Kurds are refusing to accept Erdogan’s pro-Islamic ideas. Their goal is to preserve the ethnic and religious diversity of Northern Syria,” Sido emphasized.

Thousands of refugee families are already accommodated in the refugee camp “Robar” and the neighboring camp “Shahba” – and there are hundreds more arriving every day. In total, Afrin is said to have become a temporary home for almost 400,000 refugees. Most of them are Sunni-Arab refugees from Aleppo and the surrounding villages. The humanitarian situation there is disastrous. While Assad and his Russian ally Putin are still carrying out air raids on the eastern districts of Aleppo, the radical Islamists – which are supported by the NATO-state Turkey, by Saudi Arabia and Qatar – are attacking the western parts of the now largely destroyed, at least 4000-year-old city. “It is primarily the civilian population that is suffering from this brutal proxy war,” said Sido. Not only medical equipment and physicians are needed to take care of the many injured. According to Unicef, the water supply in the city broke down completely after Islamist fighters attacked a pump station – and the conflict parties are also trying to hit electricity plants.

Header Photo: Marco Castro via UN Photo