A year on the invasion of Turkey and armed groups to Afrin region

ARK News: Kurds in Kurdistan of Syria remember the first anniversary of the invasion of the Turkish army and armed militias to the center of the city of Afrin (disaster of Afrin) with heart burning and agony and a great pain, the year that passed the disaster of Afrin and nothing looms on the horizon as the situation will be more than it has suffered from the tragedies of suffering from injustice and violations and inhuman practices against the Kurds.

At the beginning of 2018 Turkish threats began to invade the Kurdish region of Afrin and at the beginning of January, the military movements began and the armored vehicles moved towards the Turkish border with Afrin without the ruling Democratic Union Party in Afrin taking any notice of these threats and actions to reduce the disaster on Afrin and its people.

Turkey and the armed group began on January 20, 2018, at 4:00 pm, shelling air and land on various locations in the city center of Afrin and the six towns of Jenderes, Rajo, Mabata, Bulbul and Shara.

The war continued for 58 days. During those days, thousands of youths from the Afrin area of the city were martyred and thousands of civilians were killed and wounded by air and ground shelling.

Hundreds of vital centers, government institutions, hospitals, and schools exposed also to severely damage as a result of war and bombing.

According to the military and politicians that 7,000 young Kurds were martyred in Afrin war and what was claimed by the PYD with the support of Syria Democratic Forces to Afrin was untrue and the convoys that came to Afrin were only to escape the PKK and the PYD leaders outside Afrin.

Before the withdrawal of the PYD from the villages of Afrin, they were laying mines in the villages between the houses of civilians and their agricultural lands and vineyards, this was confirmed by the martyr of dozens of civilians from Afrin who died as a result of the explosion of mines during their return to their villages and homes.

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

Due to the war and violent clashes in the border villages of Shara, Bulbul, and Rajo, tens of thousands of Kurds fled towards the center of Afrin, but later they decided to return to their villages and border villages, despite the continued shelling and clashes on the center of Afrin city However, the PYD through the Mahmuodiya checkpoint prevented the villagers the villagers from returning to their villages and the laying of dirt barriers to prevent the return of the villagers to their villages, while the checkpoint of the village of Turinde was available so that the residents could move towards the towns of Nubil, Zahra and Aleppo areas.

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During the return of the residents and because of their insistence on returning to their villages, a gas cylinder exploded, killing dozens of civilians and injuring dozens, and the media reported that an airliner targeted civilians at the Mahmuodiya checkpoint and then forced the civilians to flee through a roadblock of Turinde 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 shameful in order to force people to go towards the barrier of Turinde.

A massive campaign of displacement began towards the villages of Aleppo, Nubil and Zahra areas, and two days later, the Turkish army and armed groups entered the center of Afrin city.

After the control of the Turkish army and armed factions on the majority of the geographical Afrin and border villages and areas except the area of Mabata and the city center of Afrin and the PYD withdrew of Afrin City Center on 18/3/2018 and the Turkish army and the armed factions and groups entered to the city center Turkey to declare the day of 64 a full control of Afrin. However, 12 villages in the villages of Afrin border with the towns of Nubil and Zahra Shiite remained under the control of the Syrian regime, and according to politicians to prevent any confrontation with the two towns and protect them from the armed factions.

The residents of the border villages of Afrin have been displaced as a result of the war approaching the city center and as a result of the intensive shelling on the city center and its villages, tens of thousands of Afrin residents fled to the northern countryside of Aleppo and the PYD set up tents and established five camps in these areas where they live in a difficult and difficult situation.
When the armed factions entered the center of Afrin city on March 18, 2018, the armed groups began to loot, steal, robbery, pickpocketing, and loot the contents of civilian houses, shops, factories, Pyrenees, factories, cars, tractors and motorbikes and sell them in Idlib and Izaz, adjacent to Afrin.

The armed factions then carried out inhumane acts of killing, arresting, seizing and imposing royalties on civilians and demanding ransom in exchange for the release of detainees and the imposition of vague charges against civilians in order to reach their goal of obtaining a handful of money from civilians who suffered the woes of the war in Afrin.

On the other hand, the armed factions have changed the demographics of Afrin by opening up an area for the displaced Arabs and resettling them in the homes of the displaced people of Afrin and the PYD also caused the demographic change in Afrin by preventing displaced Kurds from returning to their villages until the Kurds in Afrin became a minority while Afrin was before Kurdish 100/100.

Despite the formation of Local Councils in Afrin, however, the armed factions continued their violations against civilians and imposed their royalties on them, while the decisive blow in the decision to prevent the sale of the oil crop only in Afrin to buy in order the merchants to buy at the lowest price.

The first anniversary of the Afrin disaster was blackened on Afrin people and the civilians spent their lives in worry and sadness As a result of the disaster of war and the aftermath of the war and the practices and violations of armed factions But there is hope for Afrin people in the new year in the hope of the return of displaced Kurds to their original villages and city and the removing of Arab settlers and armed factions from the region and returning to normal life and exchanging of sadness with joy and happiness.

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