Afrinpost – Special
Within the framework of the policy of demographic change, the authorities encourage the exodus of Kurdish citizens by restricting their livelihoods and pushing them to emigrate, and in return, they protest against Arab citizens who do not hold the Turkish identity card (Turkish kimlik) and bring them into the Kurdish region of Afrin, which it occupies, for the third year.
Afrinpost correspondent at the center of the occupied Kurdish region of Afrin in northern Syria stated that he learned, through private sources, that Ankara had returned 50 young men (from the Arab component) to Afrin, and they were among those who had settled in Afrin previously, and the paths were narrowed and they headed to Turkish territory. No Turkish identity cards were organized for them, as part of the complete demographic change in Afrin and its villages.
The reporter indicated that the settlers’ return operation took place nearly two weeks ago, and that he learned that among the returnees was a young man named “Abd al-Sattar Munim.” In a communication by “Afrinpost” correspondent with a settler smuggler, the smuggler said: “I have removed 72 Kurdish citizens from Afrin in less than a month.
And “Afrinpost” previously published news about the occupation authorities ‘encouragement for expelling the original Kurdish citizens, as they are exercising the worst treatment against them and committing violations, so that immigration is a compulsory option, while the occupation refuses the settlers’ departure from the area.
With the displacement of more than 350 thousand Kurdish citizens during the Turkish aggression on Afrin in March 2018, and the migration of large numbers after the application of the military occupation to escape the threat and ill-treatment and the spread of extremism and racism, it no longer exceeds the 20% of the Kurds in Afrin after the Turkish occupation.
In the context of encouraging settlement, the Muslim Brotherhood-oriented charitable societies provide relief aid and food baskets to settlers, including the Qatari Ataa Without Borders Association granting exclusive aid to settlers coming from Ghouta, Homs and Deir Ezzor, for an amount of fifty dollars, for each settler family to encourage them to settle, and it also provides settlers periodically. Food baskets, in exchange for preventing any kind of aid from Kurdish citizens on the pretext that they are “residing” and that the settlers are “displaced.”
