The northwest Syrian town of Afrin and its surrounding countryside have been under the control of Turkish-backed militia groups since early 2018 when Turkey launched a military offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Clashes erupted on Thursday between rival militia factions which are nominally united under the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army umbrella, reportedly killing civilians in the crossfire.  

Protesters marched on the governor’s residence on Friday to demand an end to the violence, according the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).  

ANHA, a media outlet affiliated with the YPG’s political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), released a statement on Friday on behalf of 20 human rights groups calling on the UN to help end the violence and alleged abuses.  

The statement accuses Turkish-backed militias of “violations and crimes against defenseless civilians” in Afrin and of “extreme brutality, without the slightest consideration or respect for laws and human rights”.

It also accused Turkey of pursuing a deliberate policy of forced displacement and demographic change targeting the region’s ethnic Kurds. 

The signatories, who include the SOHR, call on the UN to establish a committee to investigate the allegations.

“We ask the United Nations Security Council to put this area [Afrin] under international protection until Syria’s situation is solved,” the statement added.

Afrin residents held a mass demonstration on Friday just a day after Turkish-backed militias clashed in the town center. 

“The demonstrators headed to the governor’s residence where they chanted slogans calling upon the governor to intervene and stop the daily violations against the people of Afrin and displaced people from other Syrian provinces,” SOHR said in a statement.  

The protesters also called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to intervene and force Turkish-backed militias to move their headquarters out of the urban center.

According to the SOHR, the protest was called after clashes erupted on Thursday between the Hamza Division, Jaish al-Islam, and Ahrar al-Sham – all of which are supposed to be united under the Syrian National Army umbrella. 

News reports citing local sources indicate a child was among seven people killed in the crossfire. Rudaw English was unable to independently verify the reports.  

Once considered an island of calm amid Syria’s brutal civil war, Afrin has seen mounting violence since the Turkish offensive in 2018 and the arrival of militia factions fleeing regime offensives in the south. On April 28 this year, a massive truck bombing killed at least 42 people near the town’s main bazaar.

Thousands of indigenous Kurds were forced to flee Afrin when Turkish forces and their Syrian militia proxies launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20, 2018.

By the time Ankara had seized control of Afrin city from the YPG on March 24, tens of thousands of Kurds had fled, many of them to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria.

Families displaced by regime offensives to the south were resettled in their place.

Afrin is now home to 298,700 Kurds and 458,000 people displaced from elsewhere in Syria, while Afrin city is home to 53,300 Kurds and 110,000 people displaced from elsewhere in Syria, according to Afrin-based organizations.

According to UN estimates, upwards of 150,000 Kurds have been displaced from Afrin, most of them to Shahba camp in Tel Rifaat, north of Aleppo.

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch with the stated aim of pushing the YPG back from its southern border.

Ankara believes the YPG is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group which has fought a decades-long war with the Turkish state for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds.

The YPG, which makes up the backbone of the US-backed SDF, denies any organic ties with the PKK.

Monitors regularly accuse Turkey’s Syrian militia proxies of committing abuses against Afrin civilians, especially Kurds – both during and after the offensive.

Photographs quickly emerged in March 2018 of militiamen looting Kurdish homes and businesses and pulling down a statue of Kawa the Blacksmith – a core figure in Kurdish folk legend.

Observers accused the militias of ethnic cleansing after homes were commandeered by fighters, residents intimidated or kidnapped for ransom, and displaced families blocked from returning.

Turkey and its Syrian proxies launched another offensive against Kurdish forces in October 2019, this time in the northeast, after US troops withdrew from the Syria-Turkey border region.

UN observers accused these Turkish proxies of potential war crimes and allowing an Islamic State (ISIS) revival in areas liberated by the Kurdish-led SDF.  

The Russian-backed Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has demanded Turkey withdraw from Syrian territory and recently clashed with Turkish troops in the opposition holdout of Idlib.