In January 2018 Turkish forces and allied armed militias of the Syrian National Army (SNA) began bombing the Afrin region in the military campaign "Olive Branch." The roughly two-month long offensive led to the displacement of more than 300,000 civilians, most of whom were Kurds. With Turkey’s support, the militias established a system of brutal rule that dominates to this day. What was once part of the Kurdish self-administered zone – a fertile, autonomous region running along Turkey’s southern border – has come increasingly under Turkish control. As a result, Afrin’s Kurdish population – once the most densely Kurdish populated region in the world – has been dramatically reduced through forced expulsions and the seizure of their property. At the hands of Turkish-backed militias, the remaining Kurds, along with other ethnic minorities including the Yazidis, suffer from widespread and systematic violations of their human rights, including enforced disappearances, targeted killings, arbitrary arrests and torture, as well as sexual violence.
To address these crimes, ECCHR, together with survivors, STJ and their partners filed a criminal complaint with the German Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe on 18 January 2024, calling for a comprehensive investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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