From death to death… 176 Syrian souls searched for a safe haven but the rifles of the Turkish Jandarma prevented them in 2016
It is as if the Syrian citizens have not had enough killing by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Russia, the international coalition and other organizations, forces and movements on the Syrian territory, so that the rifles of the Turkish border guards “Jandarma” and the Turkish forces and warplanes inflict more killing among Syrian civilians, whose escape has become from death to death, and from killing to another, cannot find a haven that shelters them from the military killing machines, not inside their homeland or outside of it. From the death by missiles, rockets, mines, improvised explosive devices, in the detention camps, executions and so many others, to the death by gunshots of the Turkish border guards, who did not allow citizens fleeing from the hell of death in their country to cross and pass the border, ending the lives of tens of citizens, while those who stayed alive were not spared from the whips, sticks, kicks, slaps and punches of the soldiers of the Turkish border forces, some cases were even worse, where some of them had cuts by sharp objects in their bodies, also some others were arrested or sent back again to where the death is.
SOHR documented the death of 176 civilians including 31 children and 16 women, killed during attempts to cross into the Turkish lands since the beginning of 2016 until today, they were killed by the Turkish Jandarma border guards which targeted civilian children and women who are trying to find shelters escaping from the fate of 15,000 children who have been killed since the beginning of the Syrian revolution and the fate of thousands of have been permanent disabilities, or as the fate of thousands of children who were forced into the military operations and were turned into fighters and detonators.
On the 12th of January 2016, The Turkish border guards killed the first civilian during an attempt to cross the borders from Hasakah, the borders also witnessed gun shots and opening fire by the Turkish border guards targeting civilians in Hasakah, Raqqa, Aleppo, Idlib, and Lattakia, and many of Syrian citizens have been beaten during these attempts.
We in the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and with the entry of Turkey into agreements that impose a ceasefire in Syria in partnership with the Russian side who works on Syrian territory with its forces and warplanes, we call upon the Turkish leadership to issue clear orders to its guard forces on the border with Syria to stop killing the Syrian civilians during their attempts to cross toward the Turkish territory. and we condemn in the strongest terms this Turkish killing of the Syrian civilians, in parallel with the Turkish attempts to impose itself as a peaceful player on the Syrian arena, and we also call United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) and the European Union to put pressure on the Turkish government, so that the Turkish border guards stop targeting Syrian refugees permanently, and we call the Turkish government to open safe corridors for the Syrian refugee as the safe corridors they opened for the military, so they don’t be vulnerable to exploitation by smugglers across both sides of the border, the smugglers who charge a lot of money in order to get them to the safe side of the border, also the Syrian Observatory for human rights calls again on the Turkish government to bring Jandarma members who killed the Syrian refugees to justice.
It is worth mentioning that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights since the 24th of August 2016, the date of entry of the Turkish forces and the “Euphrates Shield” to the Syrian territory in the northeastern countryside and controlling Jarabulus, until today the 2nd of January 2017 documented the death of 281 persons, including 65 children under the age of eighteen and 38 citizen women over the age of eighteen, in addition to injuring hundreds of others, some of them had permanently disabilities, they were killed and injured in shelling by the Turkish forces and raids by the Turkish warplanes on several areas previously controlled by the “Islamic State” organization and other areas that are still controlled by the organization in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo.
The Turkish forces crossed the border in the 24th of August 2016, when the operation of “Euphrates Shield” was started, this operation consists of rebel and Islamic factions backed by the Turkish forces, they took control of Jarabulus city, and large areas of the northern and northeastern countryside of Aleppo, followed by the entry of a new batch of Turkish forces, vehicles, and tanks through areas controlled by the factions in the northern countryside of Aleppo, and the rebel and Islamic factions of the “Euphrates Shield” operation supported by Turkish tanks and warplanes were able to control the rest of the border between the western banks of the Euphrates River down to Azaz until they reached the edges of al-Bab city weeks ago.