YPG increases pressure on Assyrians in northern Syria

The PKK-affiliate People's Protection Units' (YPG) oppression of Assyrians, who live in northern Syria, has become more frequent, an Assyrian inhabitant who did not want to share his name out for fear for his safety, told the İhlas News Agency (İHA) yesterday.

The terrorist organization has been raiding villages especially in the northeastern Qamishli province and border region of Habur which is mostly inhabited by Assyrian people, İHA reported.

While the YPG was threatening Assyrian families and forced young and children to join their ranks, it was revealed that the settlements of the Assyrians who oppose the terrorist organization have been evacuated.

Assyrians are a community whose heritage traces back to ancient Mesopotamia and they speak a Semitic language distinct from Arabic. The Assyrian community exists in Iraq and Syria with a smaller population in Turkey.

Expressing that from the Habur Border Gate to northern Syria's Ayn al-Arab region, the terror organization carried out raids on Assyrian villages, the anonymous inhabitant said that the YPG attacked educational institutions and teachers, kidnapped children and forced them to be recruited to their organization.

"We are trying to control the entrance and exit of our villages and neighborhoods as much as we can. They threatened the Assyrians who live in Qamishli, saying that ‘if you do not come with us you will bear what happens'," an anonymous inhabitant noted.

Recently, the terrorist organization was brought to the agenda when they hit educational institutions of Assyrians and abducted Assyrian children from their houses in northeastern Syria.

In August, the YPG shut down Assyrian schools in northeastern Syria for refusing to implement the curriculum forced on them by the terrorist group.

Following the closures, the Assyrian Democratic Society (ADS) accused the YPG of "intimidating" the region's Assyrian community.

Last Friday, representatives from Assyrian, Turkmen and Kurdish tribes came together in Syria's Azaz region in a bid to unite against the terror groups in the region calling for establishing peace following the United States' decision to pull out its troops from Syria.