PYD/YPG ‘has killed’ 51 children, 356 other civilians: Turkish Interior Ministry

ANKARA

REUTERS photo

The Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), has killed a total of 407 civilians, including 51 children and 43 women, torturing 16 of these since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, according to a report published by the Turkish Interior Ministry, daily Habertürk reported on May 15.

The May 2017 report, prepared both in Turkish and English, claimed that the PYD and YPG organizations were established by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) by order of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan following a vacuum of power caused by the Syrian civil war in the region. 

The PYD and YPG have launched a total of 14 attacks against Turkey in the last three months, said the 68 pages report named “PKK/KCK [Kurdistan Communities Union] Terror Organization’s Syrian branch: PYD/YPG,” according to the newspaper. 

The report also touched upon the alleged abuse of women and children committed by the PYD and YPG in the region. It claimed that many female children were abducted and later taken to PKK camps in northern Iraq to be trained as fighters. 

One 17-year-old girl was shot in the head because she had tried to run away from a PKK camp nine times, the report claimed, while adding that the YPG abducted 1,651 in the region, including 88 women, until January 2016. It also said the group had executed members of opposing organizations. 

Indicating that there are many cases of murder and missing individuals in the regions under YPG control, the report said nine settlements were raided by the group, 19 villages were destroyed, and people in at least 49 settlements were exiled. 

The report further gave information claiming that the PKK/KCK and PYD/YPG were the same entities. Öcalan’s poster is present at the entry of Tel Abyad, a town in Syria captured by YPG forces, the report said, adding that the jailed PKK leader’s posters were also hung in the district of Afrin in northwestern Syria. 

Turkey says the YPG/PYD entity is an offshoot of the PKK. Turkey considers the YPG as a terrorist group and the Turkish military has on various occasions hit YPG positions inside Syria.

The U.S. and the EU consider the PKK a terrorist group, but not the YPG, while Russia does not see either the PKK or the YPG as terrorist groups.