After resettling them in, 15 Ghouta-displaced families are expelled from houses in Afrin city by a faction operating in the Turkish-led “Olive Branch” Operation
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored a new tension in Afrin city as a result of violations against displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta, the violations were carried out by the factions operating in the “Olive Branch” Operation, which, after settling displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta in the area; they started carrying out violations and abuses against them, where the Syrian Observatory monitored during the past hours the faction of al-Shamiyyah Front expelling 15 displaced families from the Eastern Ghouta, where they have been expelled from homes where they were resettled in at Afrin city by the local council in the city, and the sources confirmed that the expelling was carried out by fighters of al-Shamiyyah Front which operate under the banner of the Turkey-supported “Olive Branch” Operation which is led by the Turkish Forces, where families of fighters belong to al-Shamiyyah Front were resettled in these homes from which the displaced people were expelled.
This expel is not the first of its kind in Afrin city, although Turkish Forces have resettled displaced people in Afrin and its countryside –both within homes of the displaced population of Afrin and in camps in Afrin area–, where the Syrian Observatory published on the 29th of July 2018 that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that skirmishes took place in Afrin city, between displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus against members of the military police, against the background of the fact that the latter demanded in Afrin city, that displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, who have been resettled earlier, have to leave their houses, and the intersected sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the families that were asked to leave the houses, refused these orders of the military police, which caused verbal argument developed to fighting and crossfire between members of the military police against the members of these families who belong to Al-Rahman Corps which has been displaced from the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus.
And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published on the 12th of June 2018, that tension prevails Afrin city between an Islamic movement and between displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned from several reliable sources that the Islamic movement of Ahrar al-Sham forced 7 families from displaced people of the Eastern Ghouta to evacuate their homes in Afrin city, where they were evicted from the houses at gunpoint along with warning them not to return to the houses, the sources said that they were threatened that if returned they would be imprisoned on charges of “dealing with Kurdish forces”, and the reliable sources confirmed to the Observatory that this disagreement took place after the refusal of some families to live in the houses of Afrin people who were displaced by the Turkish forces and the Syrian opposition factions, where the families contacted the homeowners to rent the houses from them and sign official contracts, which provoked the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham in Afrin city and pushed it to expel the residents of the houses who are from the Eastern Ghouta and cane to Afrin on board of the displacement convoys; on the pretext that the area which is under the control of the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham is “liberated” by the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham; and it wants to put families of its fighters in these houses.
This expel of Eastern Ghouta families of who were resettled in Afrin; comes after the resentment of the displaced people of the capital Damascus Rif Dimashq from the miserable situation in the areas they had arrived to, of the camps and houses where they had been resettled in, because of what they called a bad treatment by fighters of the factions of “Olive Branch” operation and the lack of food and humanitarian assistance, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtained reliable information from several intersected sources at the end of the last May 2018, that hundreds of families in the north of Syria are preparing to return from the areas to which they have been displaced; to their towns and cities from which they have been displaced, and in the details documented by the Syrian Observatory: about 400 families from the Eastern Ghouta of who arrived in the past weeks to the Syrian north; are preparing to return to their cities and towns from which the regime forces and Russian forces have displaced them from in the past weeks, and reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the return process comes after registering their names by their families at committees in the Eastern Ghouta, and the sources assured the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that these families have changed their decision of staying in the Syrian north, and preferred to return as a result of what they said: “Ignore their tragedy by humanitarian, relief and medical organizations, the lack of proper services, and the ill treatment towards them by local factions operating in the Syrian north, in addition to being persuaded by their families to return to the Eastern because of the latter’s allegations that the situation is safe”.