Aleppo, Syria – A young man was shot and killed on Thursday by unidentified gunmen in the Afrin region of northern Aleppo province, northern Syria, according to a local source.
According to the source, the victim, Mustafa Jamil Sheikho, was shot while guarding a set of solar panels belonging to his family. He was 17 years old and a resident of the village of Haj Hassani in the Jindires subdistrict of Afrin.
This incident comes after the withdrawal of checkpoints previously set up by Turkish-backed Syrian factions in Afrin, a predominantly Kurdish area under their control since 2018.
On April 9, these factions removed their checkpoints from Afrin, although they maintained their military headquarters in the area, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP) citing an official from the Syrian Ministry of Defense.
The official, who requested anonymity, said:
“Military presence and checkpoints within the city have been canceled, except for one internal security checkpoint, while military headquarters remain unchanged for the time being.”
Read more: Turkey-Backed Forces Remove Checkpoints in Kurdish-majority Afrin, Syria
He added that transferring personnel from these northern Syrian bases to former regime-controlled facilities was not possible due to repeated Israeli airstrikes on those locations.
Turkish forces and allied Syrian factions seized Afrin in March 2018 after a two-month military campaign against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Several human rights organizations have since documented widespread violations against the Kurdish population in the region. Amnesty International previously urged Turkey to end “serious human rights abuses” committed by its affiliated fighters, which reportedly included arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, property confiscation, and looting.
According to the United Nations, the military operations displaced approximately half of Afrin’s population, which totaled around 320,000 people. Most of the displaced residents have yet to return to their homes.
