Local people in Syria continue to suffer from atrocities inflicted by the PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG), as the terrorist group ramped up efforts to confiscate their properties, destroying their homes.
"PKK militants confiscated six houses and 800 acres of fields belonging to my relatives. Thus, the YPG has been confiscating numerous homes without making any payments. The group uses this method as a part of its isolation policy," Abdullatif al-Kejel told Turkey's Yeni Şafak newspaper yesterday.
Kejel underscored that while the YPG has been imposing policies similar to the ones that Israel uses against Palestine, in the northern Syrian provinces of Hasakah and Raqqa, it also destroys homes of local people in areas near the Syrian-Turkish border such as in Ayn al-Arab and Tal Abyad by digging tunnels under homes.
Pointing out that the U.S. has been transporting iron and cement along with weapons to the YPG, Kejel stated that all this cement and iron could be used for the reconstruction of war-torn cities yet it is used to support terrorist tunnels. He added that more than 70 houses have collapsed so far and thousands of houses situated 10-to-15 kilometers near the border are facing the danger of collapsing. Kejel also called for Turkey to take action against the terrorist organization.
"The dignity and honor of the local people in the region were crushed by the terrorist organization and their supporters. If Turkey delays its intervention, the extent of the damage will multiply," he said.
Previously, numerous human rights organizations have documented the YPG's violations of human rights including torture, recruiting child soldiers and burning civil buildings.
Recently, a report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHO) reported an increase in deliberate disruptions of education and health services in northern Syria's Raqqa and Hasakah provinces. "On Oct. 24 the Kurdish Self-Administration (KSA) reportedly closed four Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) and immunization services centers supported by UNICEF and WHO," the report said.
On Oct. 25 a number of health and nutrition clinics treating cases of severe and acute malnutrition in Raqqa city were also closed, according to the U.N. report. Aside from disrupting health services, it was reported that the group has also been targeting Syrians' right to education.
The group also systematically and forcefully displaces Arabs from their homes and replaces the regions with Kurdish people who agree with their policy of demographic changes in traditionally Arab towns. As a part of this policy, the YPG forces Arabs to join the group and has changed the education system, especially in Qamishli and Hasakah, by altering historical and geographical facts in favor of the terrorist organization's ideology.
Arabs who refuse to obey these changes are oppressed. Apart from Arabs in Syria, the YPG also continues to implement its cruel policies on Syrian Kurds who do not comply with their policies, killing a large number of Syrian Kurd politicians since 2012. The YPG has kidnapped dissident Kurdish politicians, particularly from the Syrian Kurdish National Council (ENKS) and figures who criticized them for a number of reasons, in addition to collecting ransom from businesses. The YPG has organic organizational and operational links with the PKK, a group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU and Turkey. The YPG and PKK's ultimate aim is to establish an autonomous region in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.