Lelun Afrin
No group of society has been spared from the multiple violations committed by armed factions against indigenous people since the occupation of Afrin in March 2018. These violations also included vulnerable groups of children and women, in addition to the elderly, who have become targeted by murders, assaults, beatings, humiliation and imposed taxes on them. Also, they are subjected to theft with the aim of intimidating them and displacing them from their cities and villages, as they are the most clinging to their land and trees.
On 5th January 2024, the elderly “Abdul Hamid Mustafa Youssef”;72, his wife “Fatima Hanan Youssef”;67 and his daughter “Gulishan Abdul Hamid Youssef”;40, residents of the “Mamulu/Mamali” village in Rajo district in the Afrin region, were attacked, beaten and robbed by an armed group that raided their house in the village under the control of the “Ninth Division” faction of the Syrian National Army.
After Lelun’s researcher communicated with sources close to the victims, one of Abdul Hamid’s sons named “Rezan Youssef,” who lives outside the Afrin region, explained in his testimony dated 8th January 2024, the following:
“It was around two on Friday morning when an armed group infiltrated my father’s house, where my family was sleeping in one room. Suddenly, everyone woke up on the sound of someone pushing the door forcefully. My father and mother saw an armed group consisting of six people inside their room, and there were others people stood outside the room, until an armed person blindfolded my father and mother and tied their mouths.
My sister Gulishan was about to run outside the room to call for help, when one of the officers hit her in the face hardly and she fell to the ground. They dragged her into the room and tied her so that she would not make a sound, then one of the officers hit my father and my mother on their face with the butt of his weapon. They forcibly took my mother’s ring from her ring finger (her wedding ring fifty years ago). Here they randomly beat my father and mother and stole my sister’s earring, two cell phones, and the router. They went to the other room to dig it up until they found two gold bracelets belong my sister, Gulishan and a sum of money about 1,000$ they took all of them”.
“Rezan” also confirmed that his father suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, and his mother suffered from a previous fracture in her right hand and the assault on her increased her pain and suffering.
The area witnessed similar violations in previous times that targeted other elderly people, some of whom were killed by unknown armed groups with the aim of theft and intimidation, as happened with the elderly Muhyiddin Oso;78 and his wife, “Huriya Muhammad Bakr”; 74 from Qatma village in the Sharan district on 25th August 2019. When they were severely beaten by an armed group stormed their house located in Ashrafieh neighborhood in Afrin city and her husband losing his life immediately. They also beat the elderly woman, Houriya, in her ribcage, causing her sever internal bleeding and she also lost her life on 6th September 2019.
On 8th November 2018, citizen Aisha Hanan;80 lost her life after she was robbed by an armed group that raided her house located in Burj Abdallo village in Sherawa district. She was forced to hand over a sum of money to them in addition to her jewelry, and while she was trying to call for help, they silenced her by strangling her until she lost her life.
Citizen “Fatima Kina”; 80; also lost her life by strangulation on 19th April 2020 by “Samarkand Brigade” faction after storming her house in Hekecha village in Sheikh Al-Hadid/Shia district, while her sons were in their agricultural lands.
The Yazidi citizen, Fatima Hamki; 60; from Qatma village in Sharan district, lost her life on 27th June 2018 after a grenade was thrown at her house by unknown. Fatima’s husband, Hanan Brim, was arrested and tortured in one of the armed factions’ prisons. He was released after paying a financial ransom, and his family was later subjected to harassment.
The cases mentioned above are part of the violations that targeted many elderly indigenous people in the Afrin region in order to intimidate them, insult them, and force them to leave their homes.