Mercenary groups affiliated with the Turkish state set up temporary checkpoints around the Şêxmeqsûd (Sheikh Maqsoud) and Eşrefiyê (Ashrafiyah) neighborhoods of Aleppo and detained dozens of Kurdish citizens on Wednesday.

The detained civilians, who have been released, were tortured, insulted and threatened with death while in custody.

Some of those who were kidnapped in Aleppo's Baghdad Station neighborhood told ANHA news agency about what they had been through.

The citizens said that around 14 vehicles blocked the road. Masked men getting out of the vehicles asked them “Which one of you is Kurdish?” and tortured and insulted them after looking at their ID cards.

The victims stated that the detainees were blindfolded and put into vehicles kept on the side of the road. The mercenaries called them “pigs”, threatened to behead them, hit them with iron and heated hoses, sprayed them with pressure water, and forced them to make animal noises.

The mercenaries extorted the belongings and money of the civilians without explaining why they were abducted.