Lelun Afrin
The killing of four Kurdish individuals in Syria’s town of Jinderes in the Afrin region, northwest of the country, sparked a massive wave of indignation and denunciation in Syria and abroad. Syrians and Kurds across the country and Europe protested to express solidarity with the victims’ families and their demands. The families called for holding the perpetrators accountable, providing surviving family members with international protection, and releasing all detainees in the detention facilities of the armed opposition groups.
Unlike the people’s reaction, official responses from countries and international bodies about this incident came late. On 1st April 2023, the U.S. Embassy in Damascus posted a brief tweet on their official account addressing violence in Jinderes on the eve of Newroz, urging an end to attacks against civilians. The embassy stressed: “Violence like that witnessed in Jinderes on March 20 threatens Syria’s stability. We urge all parties to halt civilian attacks and call for accountability.”
This statement is consistent with the remarks issued by the US State Department through the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, included in their annual report on the state of human rights for the year 2022 worldwide. The report approaches the systematic looting and arrests carried out by Turkish-backed Syrian armed opposition groups, as well as the confiscation of civilian homes and property, especially those belonging to the Syrian Kurds -the indigenous population of the Afrin region. Additionally, the report praised the efforts made by “Syrians for Truth and Justice” (STJ) towards extensively reporting the demographic change, especially in Afrin.
The U.S.-issued report also focuses on violence against women and cites STJ’s submission to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, which documented violations perpetrated by members of the al-Hamza/al-Hamzat Division, one of the factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), deployed in Afrin and its countryside.