Panorama of Afrin's events in 2018

ARK News: At the beginning of 2018 Turkish threats that represented of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began to enter the Kurdistan 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 Kurdish parties bother to those threats, especially the Democratic Union Party ruling in Afrin to reduce the occurrence of a disaster on Afrin and its people.

On 20 January 2018 at 4 pm Turkey and the armed groups began the aerial and the land bombardment of various locations in Afrin city center and the seven towns of Jenderes, Rajo, Mabata, Bulbul, Shiye and Shara.

The war lasted for 58 days and during those days thousands of young people from Afrin region were martyred who joined the PYD, in addition to the death and injury of thousands of civilians by aerial and ground bombardment. Hundreds of vital centers, government institutions, hospitals, and schools were also severely damaged as a result of war and bombing.

According to the military and politicians, 7,000 young Kurds were martyred in the Afrin war and what was claimed by the PYD with the support of the SDF to Afrin was intentionally untrue and what were these convoys that had come to Afrin were only to escape leaders of the PKK and PYD to outside of Afrin city.

Before the withdrawal of the PYD militants from the villages of Afrin they had planted mines in most villages and in civilian homes and their agricultural lands and vineyards and this was confirmed by the deaths of dozens of civilians from Afrin who died as a result of the explosion of those planted mines during their return to their villages and homes.

After the control of the Turkish army and armed factions on the majority of Afrin geographical and the border villages and areas except Mabata town and Afrin city center the PYD withdrew from Afrin city center on 18/3/2018 the Turkish army and armed factions entered the center of the city and Turkey to declare after 64 days a full control of Afrin, however, 12 villages in the villages of Afrin border with the two towns of Shiite, Nubil and Zahra, remained under the control of the Syrian regime to avoid any confrontation with the two towns and protect them from the armed factions.

The residents of the border villages of Afrin were displaced as a result of the war to the city center and due to the intensive shelling of the city center and its villages, tens of thousands of Afrin residents fled to the northern countryside of Aleppo and the PYD sets up tents them the PYD established five camps in those areas where they now live in a difficult and miserable situations.

On March 18, 2018, when the Turkish army and the armed factions entered Afrin city center, the factions like the locust began to loot, steal and rob the contents of civilian houses, shops, factories, factories of Bereen, olive presses, cars, tractors and motorcycles and sold them in Idlib and Izaz, adjacent to Afrin.

out acts which are contrary to human values and religion from killing, arresting, seizing and imposing royalties on civilians and demanding ransoms in exchange for the release of the detainees and the reckless charges of civilians in order to reach to their goal of obtaining a handful of money from civilians who suffered the scourge because of the war in Afrin.

On the other hand, Turkey and the armed factions have changed the demographics of Afrin by opening up an area for the displaced Arabs and settling them in the homes of displaced Afrin. The PYD also caused the demographic change in Afrin by preventing the displaced Kurds from returning to their villages until the Kurds in Afrin became a minority while before that the rate of Kurds in Afrin region were the majority.

Despite the formation of Local Councils in Afrin, but the armed factions continued their violations against civilians and imposed royalties, while the decisive blow was in Turkey's decision to ban the sale of oil crop only within Afrin, then Turkish traders buy the olive crops at the cheapest prices and sell them at high prices in Turkey.

The year 2018 was a black year for the people of Afrin, they live in a cloud of fear as a result of the catastrophe of the war and its aftermath, the practices, and violations of the armed faction, but the hope remains in the new year in the hope that the displaced Kurds will return to their villages and towns, and the departure of Arab settlers and armed factions from the region and the return of normal life to it and the exchange of sadness with joy and happiness.

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