Olive theft continues in Afrin under armed protection
Yekiti Media
In a scene that has been repeated for the sixth consecutive year, on the morning of Sunday, October 19, around 50 to 60 settlers, supported by armed factions, randomly stole the olive harvest from fields located on the road to the village of Kafr Shila, which belongs to the city of Afrin.
These lands belong to their original Kurdish owners, who are residents of the village and neighboring villages.
Local sources reported that most of the leaders of the armed factions who had previously joined the Ministry of Defense returned to the area accompanied by workers to harvest the olives without any legal right to do so, in full view of the landowners, under the direct protection of Turkish intelligence and with the collusion of the public security forces and some members of the economic offices, who impose strict conditions on Kurdish citizens to harvest their crops, such as obtaining a property registration statement, an area statement, and an official mission order.
In a related context, the Shih area witnessed a similar looting operation over the past two days, when a group of armed men and settlers stole the olive harvest from the field of Ali Sabri, a resident of the village of Khalil.
According to sources, the field is located in Shih valley and contains about 100 olive trees.
These violations are increasing in the absence of legal accountability, which perpetuates a reality of impunity in the region and deepens the suffering of the indigenous Kurdish population, who are deprived of their most basic rights to their land and livelihood.
Violations and crimes have continued in Afrin since the Turkish army and Syrian opposition factions invaded the Afrin region in the spring of 2018, including arbitrary arrests, forced detention, and the imposition of financial ransoms on the families of those kidnapped, with the aim of forcing the indigenous Kurdish population to emigrate in order to change the demographic composition of the Kurdish city. .
