Like many Afrin residents, young man M.A. decided to stay in his home, but he did not know that he would spend the next years of his life under torture in the basements of the occupation prisons.
Another story narrated by a survivor of the practices of the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries in the occupied Afrin canton against its original inhabitants.
The story of M.A., a young man from Afrin who spoke to ANHA (Hawar News Agency) refusing to reveal his identity for security reasons, begins 20 days after the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries occupied Afrin, and al-Jabha al-Shamiyyah mercenaries raided his home.
Only twenty days had passed since the occupation of Afrin when the mercenaries of al-Jabha al-Shamiyyah raided his house with three cars loaded with heavy weapons. It was not an ordinary arrest, but he was beaten and tortured inside the house, and then they blindfolded him and took him to the security department to spend the next two days under torture.
Investigation without evidence or substantiated charge
The mercenaries began to investigate the young man and offered to be paid money and gold in exchange for his release, but the young man did not have money nor gold.
Mercenaries took turns beating and torturing M.A. who remembers some of the surnames that the mercenaries used to communicate with each other (Abo Abdullah, Abo Nimr, Abdo, Abo Othman).
M.A. remained for 18 days in the interrogation, during which he was subject to torture more than three times per day in various forms: burning and beating with a cable.
The accusation against him was ready, and it was the same charge that is fabricated against every detainee, namely dealing with the Autonomous Administration. Every time, a detainee is asked to pay a ransom in exchange for his release, and the ransom demanded from M.A. was one million Syrian pounds, and what he owns of valuables such as gold.
For 40 days, the young men did not see light, in a single cell, and only got a loaf of moldy bread.
More than 400 young men and 40 women arrested
After the arrival of M.A. to the court, they used to interrogate him for only an hour a day, and there the young man witnessed horrific things; about 400 young men and about 40 women detained, among them elderly people over the ages of 70 and 80 years being beaten and tortured.
M.A. recounts his observations in Afrin court prison, where he spent 4 and a half months in the investigation, and he tells the following: "The mercenaries used to interrogate women every 15 days, while they were beaten during the investigation. Sometimes we saw from the cell window that the mercenaries took the abducted women forcibly between three and four in the morning, and then returned them to the cell after two hours."
Children in Afrin Central Prison
After arresting the young man M.A. for a period of 4 and a half months, the mercenaries of al-Jabha al-Shamiyyah transferred him to the Central Prison located in the village of Marateh in Afrin.
During his stay in Afrin prison, the young man noticed the presence of young children in Afrin Central Prison, at the age of one year and above, saying: "I saw a family consisting of a mother and father and their young child as well as teenagers in the prison."
M.A. also indicated that there are more than 800 young men and nearly 60 women inside Afrin Central Prison.
The period of investigation with M.A. lasted for 8 months, and the court subsequently issued a ruling against him with a 3-year prison term, along with a fine of two million SYP.
The young man spent a year and a half of his sentence in Afrin Central Prison and was released after he paid a ransom.
The young man’s next trip was to find a way out of Afrin and reach a safe place, and he was able to leave after paying $ 100.
