Eyewitness narrates what happened to her during a year and six months in occupied Afrin

Citizen Zozan Khalil (41 years old) from the village of Andariya, in the Janders district of the occupied Afrin canton, was displaced from Afrin after its occupation by the Turkish occupation army in 2018, like thousands of Afrins who were forced to leave their homes, and lived in al-Shahba.

Zozan could not stay away from her village and her homeland, so she decided to return to Afrin a few months after her displacement, and she fell into the trap of media misinformation promoted by the so-called “Kurdish National Council”, that occupied Afrin is safe.

During her return, citizen Zozan, accompanied by her husband and four children, was subjected to harassment by the mercenaries. She was threatened with weapons and had to pay a ransom of 20,000 Syrian pounds at the time, to allow them to cross to Afrin.

The first place she went to was her home, but she was surprised by what she saw, as she described the scene by saying: “They seized my house and looted everything in it, where settlers live.”

The mercenaries forced Zozan to go to another house in the village of Andariya, and she stayed there and did not leave as a result of the security chaos and kidnappings and murders in the village and Afrin in general. In this regard, she said: “In Afrin, you have no authority over your property or even over your family.”

Witness the crimes of the occupation

After a while, Zozan moved with her family to the center of the occupied city of Afrin and lived near the Kawa Al-Haddad roundabout, where she witnessed a number of crimes committed by mercenaries against citizens.

Zozan said: “I heard that the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation state committed a crime of rape against a young woman who was engaged to her cousin. They killed her after raping her and killing her fiancé.” Commenting on that, she added: “They act as they please, as if everyone is their slave.”

Zozan witnessed 16 mercenaries attacking a neighbor's house and looting the tablets, money and gold in it, along with his personal identity, with the aim of forcing him to pay a financial ransom in exchange for its return.

It also witnessed mercenaries beating and insulting an elderly person over 90 years old, under false pretexts and pretexts.

Zozan could not stay in occupied Afrin any longer, and decided to leave it, where she went to al-Shahba, and explains in this context: “In Afrin, you are stripped of your principles and rights, and they control your life and your way of living as they please, and they commit crimes before your eyes, and you cannot utter a single word.” Either your fate will be death, imprisonment, or torture, and you have no third option.”

Zozan paid an amount of 350,000 Syrian pounds in exchange for her departure from Afrin in late 2019, accompanied by her husband and children after staying there for a year and six months, to go to al-Shahba and stay there for two years, and move at the beginning of 2023 to Aleppo to settle there.

T/ Satt.

ANHA