Lelun Afrin

The European Union organized a Seventh Brussels Conference on ‘Supporting the future of Syria and the region’ on 14 and 15 June 2023, in Brussels. The conference addressed critical humanitarian and resilience issues affecting Syrians in Syria and neighboring countries. Syrian participants– as individuals and organizations – and those who failed to attend due to logistical difficulties were looking forward …

The civilians of the Kurdish-majority in Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafieh neighborhoods in Aleppo city, which are under the control of the Autonomous Administration, suffer from recurring economic and service crises, especially after the earthquake of 6th February 2023, as a result of the imposition of the checkpoints of the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arm since the beginning of May …

Executive Summary This joint report documents a wide range of human rights violations that accompanied and followed the humanitarian response to the catastrophic earthquake that shook Syria on 6 February 2023. These violations and abuses included discriminatory search-and-rescue orders from some parties to the conflict, prevention or impediment of life-saving aid entry, discrimination in aid distribution, confiscation of all or …

At the end of May 2023, The Military Police in the Rajo district of Afrin summoned a group of civilians from Dimelya/Al-Umsiya village by their mayor, for interrogation on charges of “dealing with terrorism” in the past, in reference to dealing with the Autonomous Administration and its previous institutions. On Monday, 22nd May 2023, a group of six young men …

The Jenderes incident which claimed the lives of four Kurdish men on the eve of Newroz, came as another episode in a series of violations repeatedly and systematically against the indigenous Kurdish population committed by the Syrian armed factions supported by Turkey since it occupies Afrin on 18th March 2018. The “Jaish Al-Sharqiya” faction dominated the scene of events after …

Reports that showed two Yazidis men “converting to Islam” in the presence of a sheikh of western Aleppo, revived fears that the few remaining Yazidis in Afrin would be forced to convert to Islam. It also reminded the Afrin community by the widespread violations that the Kurds and Yazidis in Afrin had been subjected  since the Turkish Operation ‘Olive Branch’ …

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 …

On 13 March 2023, the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued its report on the status of human rights and relevant violations in the country between 1 July and 31 December 2022. The 44-page report builds on 467 direct interviews, carried out physically or online, covering various forms of human rights violations perpetrated by all parties to the conflict …

Renouncing the Killings of four Kurdish civilians on the 2023 Newroz Eve in Jinderes town by members of the al-Sharqiya Army faction, after they lit Nowruz fires in front of their house, a number of Syrian and Kurdish activists around the world organized several initiatives and various activities across European and Arab capital cities. These activities included peaceful protests and …

Executive Summary In this report, Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) and Lêlûn Association for Victims in Afrin reveal illegal logging operations in 114 forest sites in Syria’s Kurdish-majority region of Afrin. Based on the extent of the concentration of tree-cover loss, STJ monitored: High degradation of the forests in (57) locations, where perpetrators cleared the forests almost trees entirely. …