The Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20, 2018, in Afrin. Ankara seized control of the city from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) on two months later.
Seeking sanctuary, thousands of indigenous Kurds were forced to flee Afrin to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria (Rojava) when Ankara invaded the city.
Lonzhin Abdo was detained by Turkish-backed militant groups in Afrin alongside her father Mohammed Abdo and her sister Rozhin Abdo in June 2018. After spending over two and a half years in different prisons of Syrian opposition forces, Lonzhin and her family were released in January 2020.
“We stayed at numerous prisons, not only those of al-Hamzat,” Lonzhin told Rudaw’s Hussein Omar on Saturday, referring to the Syrian National Army (SNA)-affiliated rebel group which has cooperated with Turkish armed forces in the area since 2013.
“Before Hamzat, we were held by Turkish intelligence forces… it was nearly eight months of continued torture. The torturing methods were not only beatings; rather they had a variety of different torturing methods that continued 24 hours a day. Each prison was a death for us. There were mass graves. We buried many of our friends there,” she added.
Turkish-backed groups have been widely accused of human rights violations against Afrin’s locals, including kidnap, looting and extortion.
Several people died of hunger or illnesses and numerous other committed suicide due to the harsh conditions, according to the former detainee, saying they never received any medical care inside the prisons.
In addition to the poor conditions inside the prisons, Lonzhin says the detainees were also prohibited from any form of contact with their families and also denied legal representation and court hearings.
“For two years and seven months we had no contact with our families. We had no contact with our mother until they told us that our mother and brothers were killed,” said Lonzhin, adding “there were also no legal prosecutions… We would ask what have we done? But no one would answer.”
Over 7,000 Kurds from Afrin were kidnapped and arrested since the invasion, reported SOHR in March, with that around 1,300 of them remaining in prison. The conflict forced over 310,000 families to flee the area, the rights watchdog added.
In its annual report for 2019, Amnesty documented a “wide range of abuses” against Afrin’s civilian at the hands of Turkish-backed groups, including the arbitrary detention of more than 50 locals.
