ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish man in Tal Rifaat recounted the horror story of the Syria National Army (SNA) militia killing his wife in her sleep and desecrating her body, forcing them to move once more, years after being displaced from their homes in Afrin.
Mohammed Haji Shekho, from the Kurdish city in Afrin, on Monday returned home from work in Tal Rifaat, only to find his wife, Amina Hanan, 40, killed by the Hamzat Division, which is affiliated with the SNA.
“That day, I was coming back from work when I heard loud explosions, and people were saying Tal Rifaat had been attacked. When I reached my house, I saw my children and managed to save them, but I found my wife beheaded,” Shekho told Rudaw.
He added that the militants left the severed head of his wife inside their home, with bullet marks on the walls of their home.
Six years ago, Shekho fled his hometown of Afrin towards Tal Rifaat after the Turkish army launched an offensive to eliminate Kurdish forces in the city. After the takeover, the SNA was left in charge of the city.
Shekho said he could not bury his wife.
“When I saw what they had done, I told myself I needed to save my children and get out as quickly as possible. I was sick. How could I do it?” he asked.
Tal Rifaat was often targeted by Turkey which was seeking the control of the strategic town from the Kurdish forces for years on the grounds that the forces are affiliated with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - which has been in a war with Ankara for decades.
The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other Syrian rebel groups launched a major offensive against the Syrian army over the past week. They took control of the northern city of Aleppo, the largest in the country, and advanced their offensive into Hama province.
Around 100,000 people have been displaced from the Shahba area in northwest Syria to the Kurdish held areas in the face of recent attacks by the opposition militia groups, a senior Kurdish official told Rudaw English on Tuesday.
Khalid Jameel contributed to this article.
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