Horror and Displacement: Scenes from the contact lines between SDF and pro-Turkish factions
Shafaq News / Five kilometers from the contact lines between the pro-Turkish factions and the Military Council of the Self-Administration of Tell Abiad, Saliha Mahmood and her husband sit at the doorstep of their house with signs of anxiety and fear on their faces, while their grandchildren play nearby.
Saliha told Shafaq News agency that they might have to flee at any moment because of the indiscriminate Turkish bombardment on the villages; At night, explosions and bullets' sounds lullaby them to sleep, "This is our warm home and our village. We cannot move. When the shelling intensifies, we run westward and come back in a few hours or on the next day".
Saliha Mahmood lives in Karanfil village in the western countryside of Tell Abiad. She and her family were displaced nearly ten times because of the indiscriminate bombardment, and they were unable to cultivate their land, their only source of livelihood.
Mahmood Mustafa Ibrahim, head of Jaran sub-district council, told Shafaq News agency, "Around 15 villages were completely evacuated because of the shelling, while dozens of other villages were partially displaced. The shelling destroyed some houses and left civilian victims. Most farmers did not dare to cultivate their land due to the shelling on the one hand and their fear of a new Turkish invasion of the area on the other".
Ibrahim pointed out that most of the shelling comes after the Russian-Turkish joint patrol - which runs almost every week—accusing Russia of giving the go-ahead to the factions to bomb the area to exert pressure on the self-administration. He added that Russian observation posts and Syrian government forces take the observer position from the bombing and do not protect the civilians - even though their presence came under the pretext of protecting the region from Turkish expansion.
Turkey and its allies took advantage of the U.S withdrawal from the region to launch "Operation Peace Spring" to expand over Tell Abiad, its eastern countryside, a part of its southern countryside to the M4 International Road and 15 km of the western countryside.
