Press Releases

02/21/2023

Displacement of Kurdish people

Qatar is financing Turkish settlement projects in Afrin

The Gulf emirate of Qatar has plans to support ethnic cleansing in the region of Afrin in northern Syria – as reported by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP): “A few days ago, the Qatari Ambassador to Turkey visited Jindires, which is located approximately 20 kilometers to the north of Afrin City. He announced plans for the founding of a new city named ‘Madinat Al Karama’ on the ruins of the now destroyed small-town,” stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East Consultant, in Göttingen today. “The construction plans are a catastrophe for the local Kurdish people. Some of them are already speaking of a genocide against the Kurdish people of Afrin.” Under the guise of humanitarian aid, thousands of Arab and Turkmen families are encouraged to settle in Afrin. As Turkey has military control over all of Afrin and since independent investigators and media workers are not granted access to the region, it is now possible to step up the ethnic cleansing measures. In order to rid Afrin of the Kurds, Turkey had already founded 100 new settlements before the earthquake – partly funded by Qatar as well. Both states support radical Sunni Islam.

The Qatari diplomat is said to have entered the country via the border crossing Hamam (Hatayhamami). “Two weeks after the earthquake, this border crossing is still closed for aid deliveries,” Sido reported. “Only members of the Turkish occupying power, weapons, and ammunition are allowed to pass – but not aid deliveries for the needy Kurdish population:”

At least 300,000 Kurds had been displaced even before the earthquake, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Turkmen had settled in in Afrin. As a consequence, the Kurdish share of the population fell from 97 percent to below 35 percent. At least 1,000 people from Jindires got killed in the earthquake, and thousands were injured. Around 5,000 families are said to have become homeless. Not long ago, Jindires had approximately 30,000 inhabitants. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a total number of 8,467 people have so far lost their lives in the earthquake in all of Syria.