Bakr Alo warns against settling Syrian refugees in occupied territories

The Turkish occupation army, with the participation of tens of thousands of its mercenaries of various nationalities, launched an occupational attack on Afrin canton on January 20 of 2018, with a Russian green light and the complicity of the Damascus government, and occupied Afrin canton on March 18, after displacing more than 350,000 citizens from their homes to the Shahba and Aleppo regions.

According to the human rights organization Afrin-Syria, the Turkish occupation has settled more than 500,000 people in the homes of the forcibly displaced people of Afrin, shortly after the city's occupation.

The occupation also brought in Turkmen families from several regions of Syria to settle them on the border strip with Turkey, starting from Shara district to Janders district.

According to the organization, the percentage of Kurds in Afrin before its occupation was estimated at about 95%, but this number decreased after its occupation to about 23%.

The occupation was not content with displacement, demographic change, and the crimes it commits against the indigenous people of Afrin, including killing, kidnapping, looting, torturing and extorting the people to leave their homes, but rather it intends to settle the Syrian refugees who are in Turkey, in the homes of the people of Afrin and within the settlements it established there.

The co-chair of the Afrin and al-Shahba Canton Council, Bakr Alou, confirmed that the Turkish occupation state forcibly displaced the people of Afrin from their homes and replaced them with mercenary families, Turkmen families, and families from various Syrian regions.

The time bomb

Alou pointed out that the policies of the Turkish occupation have become clear to everyone, especially after reports by human rights organizations about the crimes and demographic change operations that the occupation is practicing in the city of Afrin, and indicated: "The international powers turn a blind eye to what Turkey is practicing in the region."

The co-chair of the Afrin Canton Council and al-Shahba described the settlers and Syrian refugees who were forcibly settled by Turkey in Afrin as a "time bomb," and said: "Because they are not the original inhabitants of Afrin."

He also made it clear that the political conditions are not suitable for the return of the refugees, and if there is a return, then it must be for every citizen who returns to his region and his home, and not to the homes of the displaced from Afrin.

Bakr Alou noted that forcibly settling Syrian refugees in the "unsafe" occupied areas is contrary to international laws, and stressed that the settlement operations will deepen the Syrian crisis.

Alou commented on the statement of US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller, who considered that the settlement of Syrian refugees in Afrin does not constitute a demographic change: "The statements of the US State Department spokesperson open the way for the continuation of the Syrian crisis, and do not serve the solution to the Syrian crisis. It is a political and incorrect statement that serves primarily the policies of the Turkish occupation state against the people, especially the Kurds.

Alou denounced the silence of international forces and organizations concerned primarily with human rights and refugees regarding what the Turkish occupation state is practicing, and called on those organizations to break their silence and carry out their humanitarian and moral duty.

The Turkish occupation established many settlements, exceeding 25, in the villages and towns of Afrin, with the support of Brotherhood organizations and associations, to settle mercenary families there.

The Turkish occupation hastened to change the features of the region and obliterate its original identity, by stealing and destroying archaeological sites, changing the names of villages and towns, and eliminating everything that indicates that Afrin is Kurdish.

T/ Satt.

ANHA