The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

The members of “Olive Branch” continue to thieve the property of citizens in Afrin and the escalation of looting and arrests against citizens rages the resentment of the displaced people of the area

With the continuation of the tragic situations of tens of thousands of citizens, of the people of Afrin city, who are still staying in the open in the areas where the regime forces are deployed in the northern countryside of Aleppo, the resentment of these displaced people, who flee from Afrin city and its villages as a result of the Turkish shelling and the attack of the Turkish forces and the rebel and Islamic factions, is escalating as a result of the widespread thefts of property of the citizens in Afrin city and its countryside, and a number of intersected sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the widespread thefts witnessed in Afrin city after the forces of the “Olive Branch” Operation imposed their control over it yesterday, Sunday the 18th of March 2018, are similar to those thefts took place in the villages of Afrin, of looting the property of the citizens, shops, headquarters and houses, and seizing tractors and the agricultural machineries and tools, where the citizens who backed to their villages, complained of thefts that their houses subjected to for all contents, where fighters of the factions operating within Operation “Olive Branch” transported the stolen things to areas outside the villages which subjected to these thefts.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also learned that the forces of the “Olive Branch” Operation, tended to carry out arrests against the citizens who stayed in Afrin area, where several reliable sources confirmed to the SOHR that 9 citizens including an elderly man (over the age of seventy), were arrested on charge that they are close to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), in Maabatli town inhabited by Kurdish citizens of Alawite community, where it is the only town to be inhabited by Kurdish citizens of Alawite community in Afrin area.

And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored yesterday the continuation of looting and theft by members of the Turkish-led “Olive Branch” Operation Forces for the property of citizens, of shops, houses and cars in addition to the contents of the political and military headquarters, and the Syrian Observatory learned that clashes took place between groups that carried out the loots against other groups who rejected the loot, but no information until the moment about casualties, while 13 fighters at least were killed and more than 25 were wounded of the Syrian Forces loyal to the Turkish Forces; as a result of mines explosions inside Afrin city during their sweep operations.

The Syrian Observatory published yesterday that the members of the forces of the “Olive Branch” Operation led by Turkey, and after they imposed their full control over Afrin city today, the 18th of March 2018, started to loot the property of citizens and the contents of the political and military headquarters and to loot machineries, vehicles and shops in the city, which used to be controlled by the Kurdish forces before they withdrew from it, after the military operation started on the 20th of January 2018, in a grand military operation launched by the Turkish forces, through which they managed to impose their control over the entire area of Afrin with its townships and its villages reaching to Afrin city today, while the Turkish forces managed to impose their control over the entire area of Afrin, after military operations continued since the 20th of January 2018, through which the Turkish forces and the Syrian rebel and Islamic opposition factions managed to advance and take the control of Afrin city and the towns of Bulbula, Raju, Sheikh Hadid, Jendires, Maabatli, Meidan Ekbis, Sharra and hundreds of villages in Afrin area, while there are remaining pockets of fighters who refused to withdraw with the Kurdish forces which withdrew from Afrin area, and who are still fighting inside the city, amid shelling targeting them in an attempt by the forces of the “Olive Branch” Operation to finish sweeping the city, which witnessed today morning raising the Turkish flags on main headquarters of the Kurdish forces and the self-management in Afrin district, and destroying the statue of the Kurdish historical symbol “Kaveh the Blacksmith”, the statue which was placed in the city about 4 years ago.