60 historical and archaeological sites and 30 mausoleums and religious sites had had been destroyed by Turkish state and its gangs since its occupation the canton.
According to the co-chair of Antiquities Directorate of Afrin canton, Salah Sino, confirmed that Turkey defame the history of Afrin canton by obliterating the history and monuments of Afrin canton that are present in Afrin, and ethnic cleansing by establishing new history in the canton in seeking to eradicate real history of Afrin and showing Ottoman history there, violating all the international conventions and treaties on the protection of monuments such as the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property and has been signed by several States including the Turkish State."
Sino asserts that Turkey is distorting the history of the region, "The site of Nabi Hori was destroyed using heavy machinery, and in the southwest of the site, about 650 AD, there is a Roman cemetery and there is a forgery and distortion."
In 2019, a major theft of heritage mosaic panels was carried out at the Nabi Hori site by a person who worked there called Mohammad Alloush (an antiquities dealer from Idlib), and the theft was documented by the Directorate of Antiquities in Afrin canton with pictures.
In this regard, Sino said that, "We have asked the Turkish State through international organizations to reveal the whereabouts of these mosaic paintings, but they have not yet been returned and we do not know what happened to those paintings and where they were looted."
On the site of Ain Dara, Sino adds, "At the site of Ain Dara, there are some videos that have been recorded showing the military factions of the mercenaries receiving their military training and throwing bombs at the temple that was destroyed earlier, and the basaltic lion structures on the site have been removed and taken from there without knowing where, according to sources from inside Afrin canton and according to images taken.
Mercenary groups also transformed the archaeological hill of Jandirs into a military HQ, and Sino points out in this context that that hill is the largest in Afrin, and large areas were dug in it. On September 28, 2019, it was documented that the area excavated on the hill was about 15 hectares.
T/S
ANHA
