Rights group says Turkey is behind abuses in Northern Syria
A prominent American NGO highlighted Turkey’s human rights abuses in northern Syria on February 29.
The Human Rights Watch report sends a scathing message to Ankara’s leadership as well as discussing in detail the historic human rights abuses that have taken place.
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It said human rights violations “are most often directed at Kurdish civilians and anyone else perceived to have ties to Kurdish-led forces and are very much in line with Turkey’s stated goals of weakening the Kurdish presence in northern Syria and creating an “end-to-end” security belt or buffer zone between its southern border and areas controlled by the SDF in northern Syria.
“As tens of thousands of people fled to other parts of Syria, and beyond, during Turkey’s incursion into Afrin, Turkish authorities were quick to orchestrate the resettlement of hundreds of Sunni Arab families displaced from Eastern Ghouta in homes of the district’s Kurdish inhabitants.”
As well as addressing Turkey’s violations of international law it called on Erdogan’s government to, “conduct a transparent, thorough, and impartial investigation into allegations that Turkish Armed Forces and intelligence agencies operating in the occupied territories are involved in serious human rights violations, including potential war crimes, against civilians, including torture, arbitrary detention, rape, pillaging, and extrajudicial killings.”
The NGO also stressed the importance of its government complying with potential human rights groups and UN investigations into violations and alleged war crimes.
Since August 2016, 5 years after the eruption of the Syrian civil war, Turkey’s armed forces have occupied various areas of Syria’s north alongside the Syrian National Army (SNA), a relatively small area nestled in between huge swathes on either side of the greater part of Northern Syria occupied by the US-backed SDF.
Since that year, Turkey has carried out numerous military ground operations to boot out the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of rebel groups that serve as the military wing of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
In October 2023, the country’s Defence Minister reiterated that it was necessary for Turkish troops to continue their missions in Syria’s north as he perceives Syria to be incapable of defending its borders.
Human Rights Watch/ AP
