Turkish-backed militias fighting in Syria raping and torturing Kurds, UN finds

UN report is based on 538 witness interviews, documents, satellite imagery, photographs and videos relating to events away from the major battle zones during the first half of this year, Peter Stubley writes

A demonstrator holds up a poster with a portrait of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf who was summarily executed by members of the Syrian National Army (Peter Kohalmi/AFP via Getty Images)

Rebel fighters backed by Turkey are committing war crimes against Kurdish civilians in Syria, according to the UN.

Members of the Syrian National Army — which was supposedly formed to help create a safe zone near the northern border — are believed to have raped and sexually assaulted women and girls, tortured detainees, pillaged homes and businesses and destroyed significant religious and archaeological sites.

UN investigators also point to allegations that Turkish forces were aware of some incidents of looting and were present at prisons when interrogation under torture took place.

Turkey should therefore "exert more efforts to ensure public order and safety in the areas under its control to prevent violations by the Syrian National Army, and refrain from using civilian homes for military purposes", the Commission of Inquiry on Syria concluded.

Commission member Hanny Megally said Turkey has a "lot of influence" over the rebels and added that the investigators are "frustrated that Turkey could be doing more to bring these armed groups that it has supported, funded, trained".

"We think that it could use its influence much more to bring them into check and certainly to pressure them to decease from the violations that have been committed — to investigate them," he added.

The 25-page UN report is based on 538 witness interviews, documents, satellite imagery, photographs and videos relating to events away from the major battle zones during the first half of this year.

It includes allegations that SNA fighters forced male detainees in Afrin to watch a minor being gang-raped "in an act that amounts to torture". The commission also received reports of forced marriage and the abduction of Kurdish women in Afrin and Ra's al-Ayn by members of the Sultan Murad Brigade of the Syrian National Army.

A former judge in Afrin confirmed that SNA fighters had been charged with rape and sexual violence during house raids in the region, only to be released after a few days.

Meanwhile in Tall Abyad, which was captured by Turkish armed forces and the SNA in October 2019, at least 30 women were raped in the month of February alone.

SNA fighters are said to have detained civilians after accusing them of having links to the Syrian Democratic Forces which controlled Afrin and Ra's al-Ayn before the Turkish occupation of northern Syria.

One boy told the commission he had been handcuffed, blindfolded and hung from a ceiling and beaten with plastic tubes during questioning.

The commission concluded that there are "reasonable grounds to believe that Syrian National Army members committed the war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment and torture, and rape, which may also amount to torture".

Women belonging to the Yazidi religious minority were also detained by the SNA forces, according to the report. One at least one occasion they were urged to convert to Islam during an interrogation.

There are even reports that the SNA are recruiting children "to be used in hostilities outside of the territory of the Arab Republic".

Elsewhere in SNA-controlled regions, satellite images have confirmed that a UNESCO-protected cultural site, the Ain Dara temple, and the remains of the ancient city of Cyrrhus have been bulldozed, while Yazidi shrines and graveyards have been looted and partially destroyed.

The report includes alleged violations by government forces under Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Islamist militan group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham.

It finds "reasonable grounds" to believe that the Syrian government has "continued to perpetrate the crimes against humanity of enforced disappearance, murder, torture, sexual violence and imprisonment".

The report ends with a call for all groups involved in the conflict in Syria to pursue "a long-lasting, nationwide ceasefire."

"I urge all parties to the conflict to heed these recommendations, in particularly regarding achieving a sustainable peace," said Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the commision.

"For nearly a decade all calls to protect women, men, boys and girls have been ignored. There are no clean hands in this conflict but the status quo cannot endure."