Afrinpost – Special
Afrinpost correspondent reported that the “Sultan Murad” militia gunmen imposed a royalty amounting to two thousand dollars on an olive field of a thousand trees (two dollars for each tree) owned by Haji Muhammad from the village of Kawkabeh in Afrin countryside. This led to the citizen’s complaint and his refusal to harvest his crop, as he would not gain anything from his season, after the huge expenses he had previously paid, in addition to the royalty.
The reporter said that the militia gunmen’s violations are not practiced against Kurds alone. Rather, most of the people of Afrin, including the Arab component of the Al-Boubna and Al-Amirat clans.
A few days ago, armed men prevented an elderly Arab woman from harvesting the season, even though she obtained a paper from the local council. They emptied the bag of green olives that the elderly woman collected on the ground, and stepped on the olives with their shoes, threatening her: “If you come back to this field, you must choose which tree to bury you underneath,” as they threatened the children of the old woman too.
It is noteworthy that all the armed militias issued successively the “royalty” tariff on the season’s harvest, ranging from 45 cents to two dollars. However, the “Sultan Suleiman Shah” militia, known as al-Amashat, imposed the highest tariff of $ 10 per olive tree in the Shieh / Sheikh al-Hadid district. The “Hamzat Militia” also, imposed a royalty on the village of Qajuma, amounting to 1,250 cans of oil.
The farmer is an inevitable loser, as in addition to the royalties imposed by the militia gunmen, there is the high cost of serving olive trees and the high wages of workers.
While the residents are prevented from harvesting the season and kidnappings took place in the fields, the Muslim Brotherhood militia militants mobilized and brought hundreds of settlers from the camps to steal the season.
