Afrinpost – Special
Afrinpost correspondent reported that “al-Hamzat” militia affiliated with the Turkish occupation and the Muslim Brotherhood organization asked the people of the village of Qojuma in the countryside of Afrin to pay 1250 oil tanks as a royalty to allow them to harvest this year’s olive season.
The reporter pointed out that the number of all village houses is 150, adding that “the people served their olives and after it bore fruit, the militants would take half the season while the other half would barely cover the expenses of serving the trees.”
The correspondent confirmed that the people are complaining about the Turkish occupation and its militias, but they cannot do anything for fear of militia violations that may affect them under a banner of multiple pretexts, while stealing the olive season in all ways, by imposing royalties on the people and harvesting the olive season for the forcibly displaced people and residents of al-Shahba canton under the pretext that they they work with the Autonomous Administration.
For its part, the media office of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Syria issued its periodic weekly report in which it documented a number of violations affecting the olive season in the occupied region, including the “al-Hamzat Squad” militia controlling the village of Marateh – Afrin imposed a collective royalty of about / 2000 /Oil tanks (16 kg) was imposed on the people of the village, in exchange for allowing them to harvest their annual harvest. It was also imposed on the people of Kafarshil village / 1000 / tanks and on the people of Mezin village / 1500 / tanks. The same militias also imposed a $ 2 / USD royalty on every olive tree in some villages, such as (Tellif, Kafar Ziteh, …).
The report added that nearly a thousand olive trees were looted by militia gunmen in the vicinity of the town of Baadina, belonging to forcibly displaced citizens, they are (Ali Rashid Ali, Hussein Murad Habash, Mustafa Khalil Shaban, Muhammad Habash Habash, and Khalil Abdullah from the village of Damlia) .
The report continued, saying that the militia of the “Sultan Suleiman Shah Squad – al-Amshat” controlling the Shieh / Sheikh Al-Hadid district imposed a royalty of 15% on the olive harvest from the Kurds in the village, and / 8 / dollars on each olive tree of the displaced’s property. Except for seizing tens of thousands of trees under the pretext that their owners belonged to the Democratic Union Party.
The “al-Waqqas Brigade” militia controlling the village of Hajj Qasma-Shieh seized / 400 / olive trees belonging to the Oso family, despite the presence of the father and mother in the village.
The report concluded that, due to the conflict over the looting, the armed men of the “Suqour al-Shamal” militia, on 6/10/2020, fired live bullets on a woman and her two children from the countryside of Hama who were harvesting olives in one of the fields of the people of the village of Shekhurzeh – Bulbul, causing severe wounds. They were taken to a Turkish hospital; as these militias seized most of the property of the villagers, who were forcibly displaced from it and prevented from returning to Afrin.
