Resettled Arabs assault Kurdish man in Afrin: Monitor

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Resettled Arab shepherds physically assaulted a Kurdish man in a village in northwest Syria’s Afrin after he prevented them from grazing their livestock in his olive orchard, a human rights watchdog reported on Sunday.

The Afrin Human Rights Organization said that Ahmad Alu, a local of Barkasha village, required medical treatment due to sustaining an injury to his head and bruises on his body after being assaulted by the shepherds.

The rights monitor accused the perpetrators of being linked to Turkey-backed militias in the area, adding that similar attacks are carried out against Kurdish residents of the village regularly.

Afrin is a Kurdish city which was invaded by Turkey and its Syrian mercenaries after they launched a military operation against Kurdish fighters in January 2018. Since then, the members of the pro-Turkey groups have been accused of violating the rights of Kurds as well as cutting olive trees of Kurdish farmers.

Human rights groups and the United Nations have published reports detailing arbitrary arrests, detention and pillaging, among other violations.

Turkish-backed groups have been widely accused of human rights violations against Afrin’s locals, including kidnap, looting and extortion.