“Turkey’s alleged safe zone” | Ankara-backed factions arrest more civilians to collect ransoms

SOHR activists have reported that Al-Mu’tasim Division, which controls Marea city, arrested a civilian from Afrin on May 20, while he was travelling from Afrin to Manbij city, to enter Kurdish forces held areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo, demanding that his family pay ransoms for his release.

While, on May 16, a military police patrol arrested a man from Kafr Safra village in Jendires district for “Going out on guard shifts during the “Autonomous-Administration” control of Afrin.”

Furthermore, On May 24, SOHR activists reported that members of “Hay’at Thaeron” arrested a civilian from Tel Jabin in A’zaz countryside on May 23, in Al-Ashrafiyah neighbourhood in Afrin city, and took him to Kafr Janna prison in the countryside of Shiran district for “communicating with Kurdish forces in northern Aleppo countryside.”

On the other hand, members of a Military Police patrol arrested a civilian from Jakly Wastani village in Shaikh Al-Hadid district in Afrin countryside on May 19, while he was returning to his village from Lebanon, without knowing charges pressed against him.