ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Kurdish sisters have been identified as among almost a dozen women who were held in illegal detention by a Turkish-backed Syrian armed faction in Afrin, a UK-based relative has told Rudaw, and have since been transferred to another facility controlled by the faction. Sisters Lonjin Mohammed, 25, and Rojin Mohammed, 19, were arrested in Afrin city center on June 25, 2018, along with their father, Mohammed Khalil Ebdo. Accounts for the grounds of their arrest have conflicted, but the sisters' uncle told Rudaw from the UK on Tuesday that they are being held "on charges of [Lonjin] carrying a driver's license issued by the autonomous administration," referring to the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The uncle, who wished to remain anonymous fearing possible reprisals against his relatives in Afrin, added that they have information the sisters are held at "al-Hamza's headquarters in the village of Basuta," south of the city of Afrin. Hamza Division is among the ranks of the Syrian National Army umbrella group, formed of scattered anti-Assad rebels equipped, trained and bankrolled by Turkey who wrested control of Afrin from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2018. The Mohammed sisters' uncle says the charges attributed to Ebdo, their father, were that he had allegedly extorted money from local businesses to funnel to the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People's Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish forces that controlled Afrin before the region's takeover by Turkey and their backed Syrian proxy groups in March 2018. "They are all baseless accusations," the uncle said. "They were arrested for their Kurdish identity, not for anything related to the YPG and PYD." The fate of the sisters is unknown, the uncle said, and their father's whereabouts remain unaccounted for. The sisters were located after the Hamza Faction became embroiled in battle with a rival SNA faction in the city of Afrin last month, the uncle said. The rival faction stormed the local Hamza headquarters, in which a prison holding 11 women including the Mohammed sisters was discovered. Those detained at the site were "suspected of collaborating with the PKK," a spokesperson for the SNA told Rudaw English earlier this month. The sisters were later moved to their current location, the Hamza brigade's facilities in Basuta. A number of human rights organisations outside Syria denounced the "abhorrent actions and abuses committed by the Syrian armed factions" and detention conditions which "no laws, norms or human values would find acceptable." An SNA official described the busted Afrin city facility as an "overstep by Hamza brigade members." Turkish-backed armed factions have been accused of "blatant war crimes" by human rights monitors, who have repeatedly raised the alarm over Turkey’s failure to account for armed faction violations against Afrin's locals, including kidnap, looting, extortion and arbitrary arrests.
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