Afrin violations | Woman and girl flee from Afrin after threats by Turkish-backed militiamen
Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Turkish-backed factions continue clamping down on residents in Afrin canton, committing blatant violations, particularly raping and forcing girls to marry them after threatening these girls and their families of kidnapping and killing.
In this context, a member of “Al-Hamzah Division” threatened a family from Afrin of kidnapping their daughter after the family refused the member’s repeated proposals. Moreover, girl’s father was summoned to the faction’s headquarters where he faced several fake accusations, threatened and terrorized, before he was released. Furthermore, members of Al-Hamzah Division have felled nearly 200 olive trees belonging to the girl’s family.
As the girl’s family continued to refuse the member’s proposals and pressure, the Turkish-backed militiaman threatened of kidnapping the girl under the pretext of “dealing with SDF”, which forced her family to hide the girl by sending her out of Afrin.
Similarly, a woman from Al-Mahmoudiyyah neighbourhood in Afrin has fled to Al-Shhbaa area after pressure and threats by another member of “Al-Hamzah Division” with the aim to force her to marry him, exploiting the absence of her husband who had been arrested previously.
In June 2020, reliable SOHR sources confirmed that a group of “Ahrar Al-Sharqiyyah” accused two women (a hairstylist and her neighbour) of practicing and promoting witchcraft and sorcery. The faction’s gunmen questioned the hairstylist in her house while his husband was kept waiting in another room.
The faction’s gunmen accused the hairstylist of promoting witchcraft for her neighbour’s favour, but she dismissed this claim. The neighbour also denied that the hairstylist promoting her work, after she acknowledged of practicing witchcraft and sorcery.
The gunmen asked the woman to pay 4 million SYL after beating and insulting her, while the two women uselessly turned to an officer in Turkish-backed factions in the same neighbourhood for help.
It is worth noting that while the Turkish-backed gunmen were questioning the hairstylist, they asked her to sleep with them after they imposed a fine on her as well. They also threatened to kill her husband or send him to Turkish-backed factions’ prisons for a fabricated charge. The woman asked the gunmen to give her just one day and promised them to do everything they wanted. On the following day, the hairstylist managed to escape with her husband and sons to Al-Shahbaa area after paying 1,250 USD for smugglers in order to be saved from these gunmen.