The sixth anniversary of the Turkish invasion and the armed factions on Afrin region

ARK News... On Saturday, January 20, 2024, is the sixth anniversary of the start of the invasion by Turkey and the armed factions on the towns, and villages of Afrin city.

At the beginning of 2018, Turkish threats began to enter the Kurdish region of Afrin, and at the beginning of January, military movements began, and vehicles and armored vehicles headed towards the Turkish border with Afrin, without the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Afrin caring about these threats and moves to limit the occurrence of a disaster on Afrin and its people.

On January 20, 2018, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Turkey and the armed factions began air and ground bombardment of various locations in the center of the city of Afrin and the six towns of Jenderes Rajo Mabata.

The war lasted 58 days. During those days, thousands of young men from Afrin who joined the PYD were killed, in addition to the death and injury of thousands of civilians as a result of air and ground bombardment.

Hundreds of vital centers, government institutions, hospitals and schools were severely damaged as a result of the war and bombing.

According to the military and politicians, 7,000 Kurdish youths were martyred in the Afrin war, and the PYD's claim of the SDF's support for Afrin is baseless. Those convoys that came to Afrin were only because the leaders of the PKK and PYD fled out of Afrin.

Before the PYD withdrew from the villages of Afrin, it was planting mines in the villages between the homes of civilians, their agricultural lands, and their vineyards.

On March 16, 2018, before the armed factions entered the city center of Afrin, the PYD prevented the people who decided to return to their villages and leave the city center of Afrin

Because of the war and violent clashes in the axes of the border villages from the outskirts of (Shara Bulbul Rajo), tens of thousands of Kurds had been displaced towards the center of the city of Afrin, but they decided later to return to their villages and the border villages, and despite the continued shelling and clashes on the center of the city of Afrin, the PYD through the al-Mahmoudiye checkpoint, people were prevented from returning to their villages and earthen mounds were placed to limit the return of the people to their villages, while the Turinde village checkpoint was available so that the people could flee towards the towns of Nubil and al-Zahraa and the regions of Aleppo.

During the return of the people, and because of their insistence on returning to their villages, a gas cylinder exploded, killing dozens of civilians and injuring dozens, and the PYD media reported that a plane targeted a gathering of civilians at the Mahmoudiye checkpoint, after which the civilians were forced to flee through the Turinde checkpoint to the rural areas of Aleppo.

According to eyewitnesses who decided to return to their villages, they confirmed that the massacre was caused by the explosion of a gas cylinder, and all that is said that the massacre was the result of the bombing of the plane is untrue, so that they are forced to head towards the Turinde checkpoint.

A massive displacement campaign began towards the villages in the countryside of Aleppo and the areas of Nubil and al-Zahraa. Two days after the massacre, the armed factions entered the center of the city of Afrin.

After the Turkish army and the armed factions took control of the majority of Afrin's geography and the border villages and town, except for the town of Mabata and the center of the city of Afrin, the PYD withdrew from the center of the city of Afrin on 3/18/2018, and the Turkish army and the armed factions entered the center of the city. On the 64th day, Turkey declared full control of the city Afrin However, 12 of Afrin's border villages with the Shiite towns of Nubil and Zahraa remained under the control of the Syrian regime, according to politicians, to prevent any confrontation with the two towns and protect them from the armed factions.

As a result of the war, the people of the border villages of Afrin were displaced to the center of the city, and due to the intense shelling on the center of the city of Afrin and its villages, tens of thousands of people from Afrin were displaced to the northern countryside of Aleppo.

On March 18, 2018, when the armed factions entered the center of the city of Afrin, the factions, like locusts, started looting, looting, burglary, pickpocketing, seizing and looting the contents of civilian homes, shops, shops, factories, factories, presses, cars, tractors, and motorcycles, and they sold them in Idlib and Aza, which are adjacent to Afrin.

After that, the armed factions carried out inhumane acts of killing, arresting, seizing, imposing royalties on civilians, asking for ransom in exchange for the release of detainees, and making flimsy accusations against civilians in order to reach their goal of obtaining a handful of money from civilians who suffered scourge because of the ongoing war in Afrin.

On the other hand, the armed factions worked to change the demography of Afrin by opening room for the displaced Arabs and settling them in the homes of the displaced people of Afrin. The PYD also changed the demography of Afrin by preventing the displaced Kurds from returning to their villages, until the Kurds in Afrin became a minority, while Afrin was Kurdish 100/ 100.

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