In one week | Military Police arrest nearly 200 people sneaking into Turkey
SOHR activists have reported that the Turkish-backed Military Police arrested nearly 200 people including women, children and elders from different areas of Syria during one week, in Ras Al-Ain (Sere Kanye) city within “Peace Spring” area.
According to reliable SOHR sources, the Military Police arrested nearly 200 people, including people displaced from regime areas with cards given to them from the local council in Ras Al-Ain and Tel Abyad, because they attempted to sneak into Turkey via smuggling by smugglers of factions, who did not agree with the Turkish Military Police beforehand, and did not pay them their share of smuggling operations.
The Turkish Military Police seized the possessions of the detainees including their gold, cellular phones and their Turkish money, Syrian Liras and USDs, where some of them were framed of different accusations, with the most prominent accusation being “working for the Party (Al-Hezb)” in reference to SDF.
On the same context, the factions raised the price of transportation to Turkey through “Peace Spring” area from SDF areas, after several smugglers fled to Ras Al-Ain area for being pursued by SDF and Internal Security Forces. This comes after the “Autonomous Administration” issued a special law concerned with operations of human smuggling.
SOHR activists monitored attempts by several smugglers, who fled from SDF areas to “Peace Spring” areas, to recruit young man who they know or who sought to enter Turkey before, to cooperate with them by finding people who seek to enter Turkey via smuggling, in return for huge amount of money.
In a failed attempt, a smuggler attempted to sneak a young man from Tel Tamr to Turkish territory through “Peace Spring” areas. However, the Turkish Jandarma arrested the young man and beat him, before the young man returned to his house.
It is worth noting that the smuggling operations are still ongoing, where the smugglers contacted people to find individuals and families who seek to sneak to Turkish territory for 2,000-4,000 USDs for each individual.