HESNA MUHAMED

 Shahba-Afrin-Shahba Agricultural Council develops agriculture projects to create employment opportunities for displaced people of Afrin living in Shahba and the people of Shahba every year. About 80 people earn a living by harvesting onions.

Every day, they work six hours and harvest 800 sacks of onions. “The onion harvesting project has been going on for a while,” said Zeyneb Cindo, director of the Irrigation Department at the Afrin Shahba Agricultural Council.

“Our aim is to create employment opportunities for people, especially women, by developing agriculture projects. The siege imposed on Shahba, where job opportunities are limited, negatively affects the agriculture sector. We experience fuel and medicine shortages due to the siege imposed by the Syrian government. We face problems in accessing agricultural materials due to the siege and attacks but we do our best to solve these problems. In addition, workers are afraid of attacks since we are close to the border. We will implement more projects despite the attacks and the siege.”

‘We endure the difficult living conditions to return to Afrin’

“We have been living in Shahba for seven years,” said Şaziye Îbo, one of the displaced women of Afrin harvesting onions. “We work here to support our family. We usually work in agriculture because job opportunities are very limited in Shahba. We work six hours every day and we are paid 8,000 Syrian pounds for each hour. We endure the difficult living conditions to return to Afrin.”