Ethnic Cleansing is already a Reality in Turkey’s Syrian safe zone

The brutal murders are not hidden, nor are they intended. Since the beginning of Turkey's invasion of northern Syria, fighters sent across the border to carry out the mission have proudly recorded their war crimes.

Videos posted online by Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) soldiers - summary executions, mutilation of corpses, threats to the Kurds and widespread looting - have terrorized thousands of people who found themselves on the road to attack is.

The racial aspect of many crimes has resulted in mass expulsion of Kurdish and religious minorities from various fronts.


Now stranded in displaced camps throughout northeastern Syria and neighboring Iraq, they fear they will never return. And that, they believe, is definitely the point.

"Now no one can go back there, it's impossible," said Mohammad Amin, a 37-year-old Kurdish man who fled the city of Ras al-Ain with his family in the first days of the Turkish-led operation.

"We've seen the video," he told The Independent at a camp near the Syrian city of Tal Tamar. "They are burning where the Kurdish people find them."

Turkey attacked Syria

In the last two months, countless people like Amin have been telling the same story in the camp and the MakeShift Shelter. Together, they portray a picture of dramatic demographic change.

Turkey, which is described as a "safe zone" 20 miles deep and 300 miles wide, borders Syria on 9 October.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack was aimed at removing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - which classified its country as a terrorist organization for its links with Kurdish separatists in Turkey .

The attack has been threatened for some time, but it only took effect when President Donald Trump suddenly withdrew the US military from the border. They are working with the SDF in Syria to fight ISIS.


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Turkey supported the operation with airstrikes, drones and artillery. Fighting at the militia's Ragtag Patchwork Ground, which was fought in the last two attacks under the command of Ankara. Some rebels have spent years trying to end President Bashar al-Assad's rule, while others have been newly appointed.

The aggression was only a few days old when the first videos were posted online. Some have shown the loot of recently evacuated homes by SNA fighters, but the first evidence of more violent war crimes has come quickly.

Kurdish Future Syria Party member Herrin Khalaf was attacked on October 12 by a civilian car while traveling on the highway between Asin Issa City and Hasaka City.

In a video posted online the next day, SNA fighters, believed to be from the Ahrar al-Sharqiya community, gathered around the car as the woman's voice rose from the back seat. Khalaf's body was later discovered by bullets and there were signs of violence. An autopsy revealed that he had a fracture in his leg and pulled his hair and was missing the rough parts of his skull.

On the same day, SNA fighters killed nine civilians on a road south of Tal Abid, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and a UK-based surveillance team.

In another video, fighters opened fire on the body of a dead man on the roadside.