Afrinpost – Special
The “locust day” was an expression of the day of announcing the occupation of Afrin city and its invasion by the herds of thieves, who deliberately stole shops, institutions, machinery and even livestock, and over the course of thirty months of occupation, locusts continue to plunder the region’s goods by all means, and today they are ravaging olive fields and cutting trees, to deprive the people of Afrin of their livelihoods and steal their efforts, while the occupation authorities ignore the residents’ complaints.
In the context, the Afrinpost correspondent reported that armed members of the “Sultan Murad” militia stole olive groves containing 700 trees in the village of Qasha in the Bulbul sub-district, owned by three Kurds (Jamil, Nuri and Janet).
The correspondent added that the affected citizens filed an official complaint about the theft with the Turkish authorities in the area, but they did not take any measures regarding it.
The armed men of “Sultan Murad” militia began an extensive campaign to steal the olive season from all the fields on both sides of the road, starting from the village of Qasha to the center of the Bulbul / Bulbul sub-district, whether those fields owned by the displaced people who were absent from the area, or those who remained in it, and they were used to harvest olives. Settlers brought in from the camps in Atma, Jenderes and Ghazawiya.
The reporter adds that with the spread of theft, some of the people were forced to harvest the olive harvest before its time, on the principle of saving what can be saved, and that a little is better than deprivation. This happened with at least with two families.
Stealing olives is widespread
The phenomenon of stealing olives before the season has become rampant in most villages in Afrin region, and its frequency has increased more with the approaching harvesting of the olive season, and there are many fields overrun by flocks of thieves, and trees were scraped to the last olive grain.
The Afrinpost correspondent reported earlier that the owners of the olive fields located on the road from the center of Jenderes district to the village of Bablit had complained to the Turkish authorities about the theft of their entire fields, and that the olives were sold in the market at a price of 600 pounds per kilogram. However, the Turkish authorities ignored the matter, took no action to investigate it, and did not take any steps to prevent its recurrence.
The Afrinpost correspondent notes that stealing olives threatens to lose the the entire season in the villages of (Bablit, Maratah, Buzika, Al Kabira, Kfarshel).
In the village of Khilika, the crop of 480 trees owned by the Kurdish citizen Sheikh Ali, from the village of Khilika, and two of his brothers, was stolen in the village of Qastal Miqdad, and it is estimated that the size of the stolen crop is about 15 bags of olives due to the poor bearing of trees this season.
And in the village of Zaara, the entire olive season was stolen from the field of the Kurdish citizen Rashid Maamou, which numbered 240 trees, and they left no olive tree on the trees.
In addition, the entire harvest of Sabri Muhammad from Oka village was stolen, and the number of olive trees in his field (140) trees, which are divided into two parts, 80 and 60 trees.
The reporter also added that armed elements of Liwa al-Shmal militia, who come from the town of Hayyan, stole the olive harvest from fields owned by the Kurdish citizen Muhammad Habib from the people of Qarnah, and the thieves forced the owner of the oil press to work by force. Only 17 oil tanks, despite the fact that the amount of stolen olives is 40 sacks of olives, and the reason for the low amount of oil is that the harvest took place prematurely.
