The deportation of Syrian refugees from Turkey has accelerated recently with the aim of settling them in the areas occupied by the Turkish state in northern Syria. The wave of deportations has reached its highest level this month, the main goal of which is to change the demographic structure of the region and its Turkification.

Thousands of deported Syrians have arrived in the occupied areas since the beginning of this year, in accordance with the Turkish occupation state’s implementation of its settlement policy in cooperation with Pakistani, Chechen and Gulf associations. The Turkish state has established a number of settlements in the occupied Afrin canton and other areas in north-western Syria.

During the month of July, ANHA documented the arrival of more than 250 refugees to the occupied canton via the Girê Spî (Tal Abyad) border crossing. The Turkish state deported 160 Syrian refugees, most of them from the cities of Hama, Aleppo, Idlib and other cities in the first week of this month. This was followed by the deportation of 42 others as part of its settlement project in the occupied areas. During the past week, Turkey deported 4 families and a number of young people to be settled in the Girê Spî Canton.

According to a local source from the occupied canton, these refugees are settled in the homes of the forcibly displaced people, seizing the property of the indigenous population and cultivating their fields in cooperation with the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation.

Speaking to ANHA, the deputy co-chair of the Girê Spî Canton Council, Heza Mihemed, warned of the consequences of the resettlement policy and the change of the region’s demography. He noted that the Turkish state tried to annex these lands to his alleged empire.

Mihemed remarked that the Turkish state was deporting the Syrian refugees as part of a well-thought-out plan aimed at settling them in the homes and properties of the forcibly displaced people who emigrated due to the Turkish occupation of the canton following the aggression of October 9, 2019.

Mihemed pointed out that the Turkish state and allied mercenaries were implementing plans to sow an extremist ideology and impose foreign settlement in cooperation with Muslim Brotherhood associations from Kuwait and Qatar.

Mihemed called on the international forces to intervene to stop the Turkish policy of deporting Syrian refugees and settling them in the occupied territories to the detriment of the forcibly displaced population, and to work to secure their safe return to their homes and villages after the end of the occupation.

ANHA has documented the entry of more than 22,000 refugees into the occupied Girê Spî canton since the Turkish authorities announced in early April 2022 that one million refugees would be deported to the occupied areas of Syria.