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International appeal after hundreds of Kurdish women kidnapped and transferred to Libya

AN INTERNATIONAL appeal has been launched to rescue hundreds of Kurdish women and girls that have been kidnapped by jihadist mercenaries in northern Syria and taken to Libya to be sold as sex slaves.

A shocking new report also describes a gruesome pile-up of womens’ bodies after their execution by Turkish-backed militia.

“The fugitives from Afrin speak of Afrin hospitals littered with the corpses of kidnapped women and children, [killed] after being accused of terrorism and threatening the security of the Turkish state,” said Ibrahim Sheikho, director of the Afrin Organisation for Human Rights.

Others are raped and sexually abused by the jihadists, who take the women prisoner while fighting as part of Turkish-backed militia on the side of Libya’s UN-supported government.

 

 

According to the Afrin Report news network, Salwa Ahmed Shasho, a young Kurdish girl from the village of Dar Kara, was kidnapped and taken to Turkey where she was to be sold as a sex slave to Qatari merchants and transferred to Libya.

She was rescued by her family, but according to those on the ground hundreds have been kidnapped and trafficked via Turkey.

One Kurdish man with the pseudonym Bengin Darwish explained: “The captives are transported to Turkey either through the military crossing (Hawar Kilis) at the Syrian-Turkish border or through the border village of al-Khalil with Turkey, as well as from the military post (Al- Hamam) in the district of Jindersse, which links Afrin to the Turkish state.”

Women’s organisations in the largely Kurdish enclave known as Rojava have called for the international community to take action to secure the safe return of those kidnapped and have drawn comparisons with the treatment of Yazidi women in Sinjar in 2014.

More than 3,000 women and girls remain missing after being abducted by Isis as it swept to power across large swathes of Syria and Iraq.

They have been abandoned by the international community despite the United Nations designating the slaughter and kidnappings as a genocide.

More than 1,000 women and girls are believed to be missing from the Afrin canton, which has been subject to invasion and subsequent occupation by Turkey and its jihadist allies following the Turkish army’s Operation Olive Branch in 2018.

The Missing Afrin Women Project maps the details of those kidnapped, with some of them held by mercenaries for a ransom before being returned to their communities.

In May, the Morning Star reported the discovery of a “torture camp” in Afrin where mainly Kurdish and Yazidi women were held by militia from the Hamza Division.

Amid allegations of rape and sexual abuse, footage circulated on social media appearing to show the women being stripped naked and tortured in the northern Syrian camps.

According to Afrin News report a network of such camps has been established across the canton.

“After Turkey occupied Afrin … institutions and schools turned into secret hostage centres. Testimonies from survivors have revealed that violent crimes of rape have stained the ground,” it said.

But the kidnappings have been deemed “legal” by the occupying forces, with Turkey’s courts complicit in the detention at torture camps.

A UN report in February found that Turkish-backed militia were guilty of the “war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture and pillage” in Afrin.

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