After Afrin was invaded by the Turkish army and their allied gangs, life became a nightmare for the citizens. Civilians who remained in the city were subjected to immoral practices bordering on crimes against humanity.

E.S. from the Meydana village in Afrin’s Rajo district is one of the witnesses of events in occupied Afrin. Like all people of Afrin, she also resisted the bombings of the invading Turkish army and their allied gangs.

E.S. was imprisoned by the Turkish army and their gangs for a while and was forced to leave her village as looting and pillaging increased.

E.S. said the following on that time in her life: “The sounds of cannons and jets were nonstop. One day in February, me, my husband and 7 women from our village were sitting at our home. We heard intense gunfire. Then we understood that the gangs entered the village. Then they raided our home. They asked us where the PKK was, where the weapons and ammunitions were. Where the money was. They fired into the air to terrorize us.

I couldn’t stay silent. I told them we were civilians and elderly ones at that. I said we didn’t have weapons. As I said these things, one of the gang members kicked me and I fell down. They searched the women, and confiscated their money and their gold.”

THREATENED WITH DEATH, YOUNG WOMEN ABDUCTED

E.S. said the gangs couldn’t be satisfied with theft and looting. She said there was a young woman with them at the time, and the gangs threatened her with death to go with them and said they would forcibly marry her.

E.S. said they followed the gangs and rescued the young woman. The gangs returned later to abduct the woman again, and threatened to kill the family if they don’t give up the location of the woman.

E.S. added that young women were frequently abducted and forcibly married as she witnessed up to the time they left Afrin.

E.S. said the gangs gathered the villagers in the village school on the 3rd day of the invasion and just looted their homes and stole their property. The gangs then gathered the villagers in the mosque in the Meydan Eqbes village to check whether anybody had any ties with the freedom forces.

E.S. said she stayed there for 20 days, after which she was taken to an outpost on the border with Turkey, to return to the village after she was questioned. She found that her house was damaged and everything had been stolen when she got back.

“There was no point in staying in the village anymore. Everything was broken, everything was damaged. We were filled with fear and pain. That is why both me and my husband had to leave our village, our lands,” said E.S. and called on international powers to remove Turkey and their allied gangs from Afrin and return the people to their own lands.