The Turkification of Afrin is carried out with violence which doesn’t spare kids who already witnessed the brutality of the invasion.

The occupying Turkish State and its mercenary allies are walking over people’s rights showing once again the true aim of the occupation of Afrin was to continue the annihilation of Kurds. And this entails also the oppression of other nations, namely Arabs, Turkmen, Chechen, and Armenians. 

The Cezire Canton Administration has released a detailed dossier listing the various ways in which the Turkification of Afrin is being pursued. 

The racist, nationalist, religious and doctrinal state which the fascist forces seek to establish to replace the autonomous, progressive, all-inclusive administration set up in Rojava, denies the history and identity of the native peoples of the region, while threatening to annihilate their existence and eliminate their culture. 

The occupation of the city of Afrin by the Turkish army and its mercenary allies and subsequent attempts to Turkifying and annex the region to Turkey, reminds of earlier attempts in other occupied areas, such as Jarablus and al-Bab, underlines the Cezire Autonomous Administration. 

Likewise it appears clear that the policy of Turkification pursued in Afrin was planned by the Turkish State before. The Turkish government is now trying to implement it to change the demography of Afrin Canton, and replace it with Turkish and Turkified nations. 

Children forced to fly Turkish flags

The Turkish occupying forces and their mercenaries forced schoolchildren to fly the Turkish flag. Some sites published a mercenary asking kids to thank President Erdogan. Of course the choice of schools is not a coincidence, and it’s part of the propaganda by the occupation forces: education in Afrin city has stopped for about two months during the period of the Turkish attack. Schools have been bombed, and indeed some of them have been turned into prisons and detention centres. Turkey, said Cezire Canton Administration, is controlling the fate and future of generations. 

Turkish occupation forces and their mercenary allies took advantage of the vacuum they produced in the city of Afrin and seized the opportunity trying to change its demography. They brought families of mercenaries and have them installed in Afrin people’s homes, while the population was fleeing. The families of the terrorist militias were settled in the villages of Akbes and Mosacow at the request of the Turkish army, says the report. 

The Autonomous Administration also underlines that amid international silence, civilians who remained in Afrin are still suffering from the worst fascist practices carried out by the Turkish Occupation State and its mercenaries (the Free Army, al-Nusra Front and DAESH).

Villages emptied

Turkish occupation forces and their allies have emptied a village in the neighborhood of Shara on 21 April 2018. The villagers were taken to Jaman village. 

The Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries are preventing dozens of families from entering the village. 

Sites supporting the mercenaries confirmed that 1,148 mercenaries accompanied by their families have arrived in Afrin Canton, after leaving eastern Qalamoun, near the Syrian capital of Damascus. 

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a second group of displaced people from the towns of Jeroud, al-Atna, al-Nasiriyah and al-Reheiba have headed for Northern Syria. The group included more than 30 buses carrying at least 1,200 mercenaries from the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar Al-Sham al-Isalamiya. 

Since the invasion of Afrin on 18 March, hundreds of families of mercenaries have been settled in the homes of people from Afrin. 

The Cezire Canton Autonomous Administration and a number of local associations have called on the international community to intervene quickly to stop the ongoing Turkish occupation of Afrin.