The impact of Turkey’s 2019 invasion on North and East Syria
The impact of Turkey’s 2019 invasion on North and East Syria

Author(s): Thomas McClure, Nina Steinhardt
Subject(s): Military history, Government/Political systems, Military policy, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Turkish invasion; North and East Syria; Rojava; Information Center (RIC); Turkish Armed Forces; proxy militias; widespread attacks; systematic looting; systematic attempt; Turkey;
Summary/Abstract: Throughout the Turkish invasion of North and East Syria, the Rojava Information Center (RIC) collected information from a network of sources across the region as well as RIC field teams, documenting the impact of the invasion on civilian populations and infrastructure. The RIC has found that the Turkish Armed Forces and its proxy militias are responsible for widespread attacks on non-combatants, systematic looting and destruction of private property and public infrastructure, and mass displacement of civilians. The RIC documented a clear trend of Turkish forces targeting health workers, vehicles and infrastructure, as well as destruction of water and electricity facilities, bakeries, roads, grain storage facilities, and so on. A number of high-profile human rights violations, such as the field execution of female Syrian politician Hevrin Khalef and the strike on a civilian convoy which left thirteen civilians dead, take place against a background of a systematic attempt to make life unliveable for civilians in the zones Turkey aims to occupy. The forcible displacement of the civilian population in general and the Kurdish, Yazidi, and Christian populations in particular, to facilitate the installation of Turkmen and Arab militiamen and their families,ought to be seen as a process of demographic engineering for which the Turkish government is ultimately responsible.

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