HESNA MIHEMED

Shahba - When you visit Til Rifat town of Shahba, you see the names of children on a monument. On December 2, 2019, the Turkish army carried an attack while children were playing. 10 people, including eight children were killed and 12 children were wounded in the attack.

Some of the children wounded in the massacre have been left disabled. In 2020, the Future Syria Party built a monument symbolling the children on the anniversary of the massacre and wrote the names of the children on the monument, a statue of a child holding a pigeon. The people of Til Rifat still remember the massacre. Whenever they pass by the monument, they read the names of the killed children.

‘The Turkish state wants to carry out new massacres’

On the fourth anniversary of the massacre, NuJINHA spoke to witnesses of the massacre. Emîna Mûsa is one of them. “This massacre was not the first and will not be the last. We still face attacks. The Turkish state wants to carry out new massacres. It killed 10 people, including eight children in 2019. It killed children while they were playing with each other. People want the end of this war and killings to live in peace,” she told us.

‘Everything turned into a nightmare’

Cemîla Mihemed, another witness of the massacre, never forgets that day. “We were sitting in the street to watch our children. We were displaced people and our children did not have a space to play. Our children could play only in the streets. Eight innocent children were playing with each other while two old people were watching them. Everything turned into a nightmare in a minute. The Turkish state attacked and killed eight children and two old people. Many people were wounded. I want to call on the international community to see the atrocity of the Turkish state and stop its attacks,” Cemîla Mihemed said.

“Even if we pay a heavy price, we will continue to strengthen our struggle and resistance against the occupation,” Cemîla Mihemed said, “We will resist to the end. Today, even our children’s dreams have been occupied like Afrin.”

‘We still face attacks and massacres’

One of the witnesses of the massacre, Rozerîn Omer told us that they face attacks and massacres every day. “In Til Rifat, we are under occupation attacks every day. Those children also became the victims of the Turkish attacks. They were killed while playing with each other. Our children were killed in front of us. They flew away like pigeons.”

Underlining that the attacks of the Turkish state and Turkey-backed factions on them still continue, Rozerîn Omer said, “We will resist the attacks. We know we will pay the price. But we will not leave our homeland despite the attacks. The wound of the massacre has not been healed yet. We are determined to return to Afrin one day. We will resist to return to Afrin.”