The monitoring team of the Ezdina in Afrin reported that a charity association backed by the State of Kuwait has been building a residential settlement inside a Yazidi village in Afrin countryside, with the aim of changing the demography of the village.
The monitoring team stated that the International Charity Association for Development, which is headquartered in the State of Kuwait, is financing the construction of the new settlement project, in addition to fundings provided by Turkish official bodies, where the largest possible number of families in Idlib camps will be resettled.
A group of residents of the Yazidi village expressed to Ezdina monitoring team their concerns that building a mosque in their village and settling large numbers of settlers in it would contribute to changing the demographic of the village, as only 50 people remained in the Yazidi village after their number exceeded 450 people before its occupation by the Turkish occupation forces and the Syrian armed opposition factions.
The monitoring team was able to photograph the place of construction of the new settlement, where the "White Hands Association" is building housing units in the settlement that bears the name "Basma Village", in the village of Shaderah/Sheikh Al-Deir, 16 km south of Afrin.
The team pointed out that the settlement to be built by the "White Hands Association", which defines itself as a charity association and has 45 partners supporting its projects, including the Kuwaiti Sheikh Abdullah Al-Nouri Charity Association, the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in the State of Kuwait, the International Islamic Charity Organization, the Qatari Ruhama'a among them, the Kuwaiti Zakat House, the International Symposium of Muslim Youth, the Reform Society and the Bahraini Charitable Work Committee, the Kuwaiti Al Najat Charity Association, the Kuwaiti campaign "Li Shamna Thukher wa Sanad".
The team added that the "White Hands Association" will build eight residental blocks that include 96 apartments of 45 square meters for each apartment. It will also include public facilities, a mosque, a school, a health center, and a village administration center.
The team noted that the settlers in this village will be families, who will be brought from camps in the northern countryside of Idlib, such as the camps in Atma, Sarmada, and Babsaqa, under the supervision of the "White Hands Association".
The team added that the association that is building the new settlement leased the land on which it started building housing from citizen Ziad Habib for a period of five years, subject to renewal, after pressures and threats he received from the militants who control the village.
The village of Shaderah/Sheikh al-Deir, 16 km south of Afrin, is a Yazidi village inhabited by some Kurdish Muslims, most of its residents were displaced due to the Turkish forces and the Syrian National Army’s occupation of Afrin on March 18, 2018, due to their fear of retaliation by the armed factions that include in Its ranks are militant Islamist fighters, and they consider the Yazidis "infidels," according to their view.
Ezdina Organization documented the killing of the civilian Nuri Omar Sharaf, known as Nuri Jammu Omar, born in 1958, with a bullet to the head, at his home in his village, Shaderah/Sheikh of Deir, on August 13, 2020.
Sharaf was arrested in August 2019 by the "Sham Legion" which belongs the so-called "Syrian National Army", where he was subjected to brutal and serious physical torture, by throwing him into a hole and torturing him in it and telling him that he would be buried in this hole, except that he was released after twenty days of torture, after his sons paid approximately 12,000 US dollars to the militants of the “Sham Legion” in exchange for his release.
Charity associations affiliated with the State of Kuwait built villages on the outskirts of Afrin city with the aim of changing the demography of the region by settling the largest possible number of settlers in the area. "Sham Charity Association" began to construct a settlement under the name of "Kuwait Al Amal" village near the forest of Khirbet Al Khaldiya village 6 km east Afrin, next to the village of "Al-Baraka", which was established by the "Al-Baraka" organization less than two years ago.
Ezdina Organization stated in its report published at the time, and based on the information obtained by the monitoring team, that the "Sham Charity Assciation" cut dozens of trees from the forest of Khirbet Al-Khalidiya village when building the settlement, which can accommodate 300 families, in order to settle the displaced from the Arab component.
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