Turkish-backed factions continue to plunder Syrian civilians

Turkish-backed militias continue to rob facilities and attack civilians in the areas known as the 'Spring of Peace', and fighting between Turkish-backed factions continues. The Turkish army has sent a column of 35 armoured vehicles to the Idlib area through the Kafr Lusin border crossing to reinforce their positions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The SOHR reports, however, that fighting broke out on Thursday with machine guns between Turkish-backed militia factions and the population of Hammam al-Turkman village. According to sources from the Observatory, the clashes took place between members of Deir Ezzor belonging to the Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction, the Syrian rebel army and members of the Syrian village, after Syrian rebel army militiamen repeatedly harassed the women of the village. Three members of the rebel factions were injured during the fighting.

On 20 March, SOHR sources reported that those factions stole diesel engines used to draw water from wells in the villages of Knihar, Drako and Al Said, a group of villages known as 'Rashda Hamra' in the Tal Tamer camp.

They also looted tools and equipment from agricultural projects in the area. The violations included illegal taxation, repressing civilians and accusing them of belonging to Kurdish parties, while these villages are inhabited by Arab tribes.

On 18 March, SOHR reported that Turkish-backed factions had looted public facilities and stations used to extract water in the village of Un Ushbeh in rural Al-Hasakeh. Turkish-backed factions have been dismantling diesel engines, water pumps and submersible water pumps by crane.

The Syrian pro-government newspaper Al Watan reported on Monday that hundreds of thousands of residents of Al-Hasakeh city were cut off from their drinking water by the Turkish military and “their terrorist mercenaries”. “The Turkish regime and its mercenaries intend to strike at the infrastructure and continue their criminal practices against the people, as these mercenaries have previously cut off the drinking water for the people,” Al Watan wrote.

The “calm and tension” in the Putin-Erdogan area since the ceasefire was declared 22 days ago is being interrupted by numerous clashes. On Thursday night, SOHR reported that Bachar Al-Asad's forces stationed in the Idlib camp fired several artillery shells at the villages of Sfuhen and Kansafra in Jabal al-Zawiya, south of Idlib, and on the outskirts of the village of Kafr Amma in the countryside west of Aleppo.

The cease-fire agreed to on March 5 by Ankara and Moscow, the Syrian president's main sponsor, gave Idlib some breathing space after continued attacks in this region. Just four years after Al-Asad promised to recover every inch of the territory lost to the rebels, the regime came very close to regaining Idlib. 

The ceasefire agreement creates a buffer zone along the strategic M4 road through Idlib province and is monitored by joint Turkish-Russian patrols, but there are no plans to withdraw Syrian troops from the territory. Turkey pledged to take measures to “neutralize extremist radical groups that prevent convoy movement” along the route, according to the Kremlin.

According to the United Nations, nearly one million people had left the Idlib area since last December. Other sources, such as the SOHR, give a slightly higher figure of around 1.15 million displaced people.