Halanj massacre... When the Turkish occupation began to target people's will in NE, Syria

The Halanj massacre, in which the Turkish occupation army targeted the vanguards and pioneering of Rojava Revolution, is no different from the ISIS/ Daesh mercenaries (Turkey's arm) in Shengal and Kobani, and the Paris I and II massacres of Kurdish women.

At 6:30 p.m. on June 23, 2020, the village of Halanj near the town of Kobani, in the canton of Euphrates, in the North and East of Syria, was attacked by a Turkish-occupied drone that targeted a civilian house.

As a result of the attack, three women, including the homeowner Amina Wesie, and two women who played a leading role in organizational work, in the July 19th Revolution in the canton of Kobani were martyred, as Zahra Berkle and Hoboun Mala Khalil, members of the Kongra State coordination.

The attack was met with local discontent and considerable response. Russia's role as a guarantor of the ceasefire process in the region, which had been established months earlier, raised doubts about its involvement in the attack.

The attack by the Turkish occupying state has taken a new direction, deliberately targeting Kurdish women. This represents a new method used by the Turkish occupation within the context of their policy of exterminating and terrorizing Kurdish women.

After nearly four years marked by bloodshed, a car carrying two citizens on the Ainbat road in the eastern countryside of the city of Kobani was targeted by a Turkish occupying power patrol last April. This attack resulted in serious injuries to the couple, Halima Mohamed Osman and Ali Mustafa Osman.

Halima Osman, 45, was a mother of five children (2 girls and 3 boys) who had been participating in the revolution since 2011. She was a member of the Sara Organization against Violence against Women.

The targeting of women is not a coincidence but rather a planned process to force women away from the struggle within the women's revolution in Rojava in North and East Syria. The assassination of the former Secretary of the Future Syria Party, Hafrin Khalif, on October 12, 2019, was a clear sign of Turkey's fear of women's free will to reject its harmful policies and heinous schemes against the region's people.

What is the role of the guarantors of the ceasefire process?

Following the deployment of Russian and Syrian government forces in October 2019, in the border areas of the North and East of Syria, air strikes against the Turkish occupation began in earnest.

Turkey, according to observers, agreed with the Russian side to open airspace over areas of North and East Syria to Turkish drones, while Turkey allows Russia to bomb Syrian mercenary sites in Idlib.

Turkey began in mid-2020 a new tactic in the war against the people of the region of North and East Syria, with drones flying heavily and seeking out military targets, allegedly on Ankara’s orders, even though the Syrian Democratic Forces had announced their withdrawal from the entire border strip to a depth of 32 km, in order to remove any Turkish pretexts for attacking the area.

The aim of this step was to displace tens of thousands of people from areas in the North and East Syria, which the Turkish occupying power failed to achieve. It sought to spread terror among the citizens through aerial bombardment and incite them to flee, along with the economic war by cutting off the Euphrates River, the lifeline of millions of Syrians, and by stopping the pumping of water into the town of Hasakeh from the Alouk station. It also closed the crossing points in cooperation with the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Southern Kurdistan.

It may seem strange to any other region of the world, but it has become commonplace to live under the constant threat of Turkish drone strikes in North and East Syria and Southern Kurdistan. At the time of writing, the sound of drones can be heard in the airspace above the city of Kobani and they can sometimes be seen with the naked eye.

Bombardment by Turkish occupation drones has become a possibility at any moment, in any area adjacent to the border with the Turkish occupying state without regard for international law or human rights, and in the silence and disregard of the international community.

Statistics of air attacks on the Turkish occupation against the canton of Euphrates

The figures show Ankara's allegations and accounts of its targeting of military areas in the region of the North and East of Syria, and the crimes brutally committed through the use of drones.

In the canton of Euphrates, in four years, ANHA's agency documented 32 air attacks by Turkish drones against the province, in the city of Kobani, the cities of Sarin, Ain Issa, the villages of Halanj, Mameat, Idka, Albloor, Kumji, Zor Magar, Koran, al-Jabiyah, Ainbat, Bir Arab, Bir Znar and Baghdik.

As a result, 29 civilians and 18 others were killed in the attacks. Among the victims were workers from civilian institutions like the Kongra Star, the Social Justice Council, and the Syrian Revolutionary Youth Movement. Additionally, 8 Syrian Democratic Forces fighters were martyred, three of whom were in the city for treatment and two who were visiting family. They were all targeted by a drone, alongside three Women's Protection Units, in the village of Idka south of Kobani on April 20, 2022.

These attacks also led to the destruction of infrastructure, vital facilities, and electricity and water networks in the city of Kobani.

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has repeatedly called for the so-called guarantor states in Syria, primarily the United States of America and the Russian Federation, to halt Turkish attacks in the region. Unfortunately, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Article 37 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, prohibits the killing, injury, or family of an adversary by resorting to treachery.

 Although the Charter of the United Nations, signed in 1945 in San Francisco, stipulated that all members of the Commission in their international relations were prohibited from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, the system of tracking and accounting for States violating the Charter was conducted in accordance with the whims and interests of the dominant States.

The Turkish occupying state is spending millions of dollars on the development of drones and, consequently, the development of killing devices, for which it is famous, given the problems it is experiencing in the management of the country, the Kurdish cause, and the economic crisis it is facing.

T/Satt.

ANHA