Olive Harvest in Afrin | Looting olive harvest by Ankara-backed factions worry farmers in Afrin every year

During the harvest season of in Afrin and its countryside, the Turkish-backed factions loot the harvest or impose levies, and the process of stealing the olive happens in late house of the day and by targeting the lands located in remote areas amid increasing numbers of thefts in the past few days.

It is worth noting that al-Hamzah faction that controls Ma’aratah, Kafrsheel, and Bablyeet villages in Afrin city countryside has organized groups to steal the olive harvest at night in those villages.

Those groups, secured by al-Hamzah faction, have looted 300 olive trees in the past few hours in the fields stationed among the villages of Ma’aratah, Kafrsheel, and Bablyeet near the prison of Ma’aratah in Afrin countryside.

In Hassan Deira village in Bulbul neighborhood that is under control of al-Hamzah faction, one of its members have looted 190 olive trees of a civilian known by his initials as “M.A.” and his brother “N.A.” and send it to the olive mill in the village after seizing it in 2018 after the Turkish invasion if the region.

According to SOHR sources, numbers of the looted trees in October are 24,800 trees that are categorized as:

• 7,000 trees in Qezlibash in Bulbul.
• 17,000 trees in Aboudan, Qarnah and Sheikhourzah in Bulbul neighborhood by Soqour al-Sham.
• 750 trees in Omar Semo in Sheran neighborhood by Jaish al-Nokhba.
• 50 trees in Sheikh Hadeed by al-Ashmat faction.

Meanwhile, some 120 trees were chopped in Sheikhourzah village by Jaish al-Nokhba and forest trees were cut in the area between two villages of Kaziyah and Satiyah in Ma’batly neighborhood by al-Hamzah division.

Meanwhile, al-Ashmat faction has imposed huge levies on land “Wakils” (individuals authorized by the real owners to dispose of their properties, and they are usually very close relatives to the owners) according to the size of the farmlands and the amount of olive harvest, as some of these levies have reached 1,000 USD for each authorization.

Al-Amshat Division’s members prevented the olive tree’s owners from reaching their farms, because the Turkish-backed faction’s members were stealing the olive harvest to sell it.

On the other hand, Abu Amsha faction entrusted the mayors of villages under its control in order to collect levies up to 25 percent of the olive harvest of this season from each farmer.