Afrinpost – Special
Activists published today pictures on social media, showing the destruction of the “martyr Rafiq” cemetery near the village of “Matina / Matenli” of the “Shara / Sharan” district, as a result of the Turkish occupation army’s assault on the sanctity of the graves, in retaliation against those lying in it, fighters and fighters of the “Syrian Democratic Forces”, People’s Protection Units “YPG” and Women Protection Units “YPJ”.
The Afrinpost had previously received information that, after completing the occupation of the Kurdish region on the eighteenth of March 2018, the Turkish occupation army, accompanied by Islamic militias known as the “Syrian National Army / Free Army”, had run over the graves of martyrs with tanks, In a retaliatory move, without any regard for the human and religious values, require that the graves and those who lay in them are forbidden, regardless of their identity.
The photos also indicate that the “Sultan Murad Brigade” militia controlling the buildings at the cemetery, has turned the funeral site of the martyrs into a camp for settlers arriving from conflict areas in Idlib and Aleppo regions.
It is noteworthy that on February 5, 2018, the Turkish aggression aircraft targeted the cemetery of the “Martyr Sido”, located between the pine forest near the village of “Kafr Safra”, in the “Jenderes” district, which led to the complete destruction of the graves.
The Turkish occupation forces, after their occupation of the Kurdish region of Afrin, also bulldozed the “Martyr Avesta” cemetery on the Afrin-KafarShil road with bulldozers, to later establish in their site a weekly cattle market.
Ordinary and archaeological cemeteries were also victims of the reprisals, as the tomb of the mother of a Kurdish poet in the village of Malala of Raju district was destroyed just because of writing phrases in the Kurdish language on them, in addition to the destruction of the tombs of the Kurdish intellectual shrine Nuri Darsmi and his wife in the cemetery of Hanan, as well as the shrine of the martyr Kamal Hannan in the village of Talf / Jenderes, who died in a sniping operation in Aleppo.
On February 8, media sites affiliated with the Turkish occupation and the Muslim Brotherhood, who identified themselves as the opposition, reported on the destruction of a group of regime forces to a cemetery in the town of Khan al-Sabil in the countryside of Saraqib, including the corpses of the Muslim Brotherhood militants known as the “Free Army”.
Those midea sites lamented that crime, which seems far from ethics and not related to humanity in any way, but, on the contrary, it is certain that the Muslim Brotherhood and its gunmen are the last ones to be lamented in this case and other violations, as they overcame the Syrian regime in stages in brutality and abuse of the people under their occupation, especially in Afrin.
Since the beginning of the Turkish military occupation accompanying the Muslim Brotherhood, Afrin activists have recorded the sabotage and destruction of tombstones in many villages in various areas of the Kurdish region, including the destruction of the cemetery of the village of Qurbê, in Jenderes district, in addition to civilian gravestones in the village of Kafr Safra, and the shelling of the cemetery and the shrine of Abdul Rahman bin Auf, “in the village of” Kanaeh Gaurke, “with heavy weapons during the Turkish invasion of Afrin.
The Turkish occupation and the Muslim Brotherhood’s militants destroyed many cemeteries in Afrin. In “Shieh / Sheikh Al-Hadid”, the Turkish occupation forces destroyed a historical tomb dating back to the year 1636 AD, called the “Al-Fawqania Cemetery” in the village of “Senara,” and destroyed more than 500 graves out of 1000 from the graves of the villagers.
In Midanki, of “Shara/ Sharan” district, local activists said that the Islamic militias affiliated with the Turkish occupation destroyed the tombstones in the town’s cemetery, and also cut down the forest trees surrounding the cemetery.
In the village of Adma / Adamanli, which belongs to Raju district, Kurdish activists transmitted images of the destruction of the village cemetery, where they confirmed that the “Failaq Al-Sham” militia, affiliated with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was the one that destroyed the gravestones in the cemetery.
Kurdish activists from Afrin believe that the sabotage has affected dozens of graves in other villages, especially since dozens of Kurdish villages are still empty of their original inhabitants, in light of the occupation preventing its true owners from returning to their lands and homes.
