Protesters in front of the UN Headquarters in Qamishli (Northeast Syria) wave Kurdish banners as they protest the Turkish capture of Afrin city in front of NE on March 18, 2018 (via @NPA_English on Twitter).
Non-violent rallies and marches were held across Syria on Thursday, as the war-torn nation observed the anniversaries of both the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in 2011, as well as the Turkish occupation of the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin in 2018.
Demonstrators gathers in front of the Omari Mosque in the southwestern Syrian town of Daraa, waving the flags of the revolution while chanting against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus. The Omari Mosque was ground zero for the beginning of a street protest movement in March, 2011, when 15 underage boys from several prominent Daraa families were arrested and tortured for spray-painting anti-regime slogans in public. Within weeks, Syrians across the nation had taken to the streets, prompting a deadly crackdown by the regime that killed thousands. Entire brigades of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) defected, leading to nearly a decade of civil war. Almost almost one million Syrians have been killed or are missing since 2011, with millions more displaced.
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Meanwhile, pro-Kurdish demonstrations across northern Syria marked the third year Afrin’s occupation by Turkish forces and their Islamist militia allies, marching in the cities of Hasakah and Derik, while crowds gathered in front of the UN headquarters in Qamishli, the de-facto capital of the autonomous region of Northeast Syria. The Turkish military staged a cross-border invasion of the Afrin region in January, 2018. dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” capturing the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin on March 18th. Kurds and other ethnic and religious minorities have since reported thousands of cases of war crimes and abuses to international observers, including the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, involving confiscation of civilian property by Turkish-allied militias, sexual assault, kidnapping, and forced displacement. After the international community failed to sanction the Islamist government of Turkey for it’s role in the invasion, the Turkish military repeated the same strategy in “Operation Spring of Peace.” Turkish forces and their militia proxies invaded and occupied a large “buffer zone” inside the Kurdish-led autonomous region of Northeast Syria in October, 2019. More than 300,00 Kurds and other minorities were displaced.
We would ask the Maranatha global family to continue to intercede on behalf of the people of Syria, where revolution and war are far from over. In the midst of crisis, we pray for international leaders to act with courage, wisdom and compassion for those caught in the midst of a proxy war between Islamist powers, and we pray for gospel laborers who have entered the fields of Syria to be granted a “wide and effectual [open] door” into the interior of the nation. Peace and freedom may not be coming anytime soon for Syria, but Good News is already arriving.
Maranatha.
