Protesters inside the Syrian Turkish Electricity company. Click to see full-size image. Source: the Hawar News Agency.
Late on June 3, hundreds of people took to the streets in Turkish-occupied areas in the northern countryside of Syria’s Aleppo to protest against the ever increasing prices of Turkish-supplied electricity.
The protests were most violent in Afrin, where the protesters set the office of the Syrian Turkish Electricity (STE) company on fire and stormed the headquarters of the city’s Local Council.
Turkish-backed militants opened fire at the protesters in an attempt to disperse them. As a result, two people were wounded. One of them succumbed to his wounds on June 4. On the same day, aid workers found the body of a protester who died as a result of the fire in the STE company.
While the protesters were met with much support from the people in Turkish-occupied areas, they were described as “vandals” and even “terrorists” by the STE and other Turkish-backed authorities in the northern Aleppo countryside.
The protests came amid preparations by the Turkish military and its proxies in the northern Aleppo countrywide and other Turkish-occupied areas in Syria for a new operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Kurdish-led group ruled Afrin before losing it to the Turkish military and its proxies early on in 2018.
In a recent speech, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the goal of the operation will be to establish a 30-kilometer “safe zone” inside Syria. Ankara’s ultimate goal is to resettle Syrian refugees in this zone.
While Turkey is making bright promises for the so-called “safe zone”, the reality is that it can’t even provide security or services for the small areas its military and proxies currently occupy in Syria. The electricity crisis in the northern Aleppo countryside and the harsh reaction to the protests in Afrin are an example of Ankara’s poor governance.
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Life is cheaper than electricity itself in Turkish occupied Syrian land, especially if you happen to be Syrian.
It’s OK even substituting with MERDolfgan, but not humans.
🪳📴💩🤡🥒💥💥
Iran? Hello?
Türkiye иди на х@й, Turkey should not be in Syria.
Except Russia.. Iranian and Hezbollah and assad gangs terrorists and the rest. Except Turkiye which has borders with Syria has no right to be there. More tequila? avni