SULAIMANI (ESTA) — As many as 89 civilians were killed in Turkish attacks on areas in northeastern Syria last year, according to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Head of SDF media center Farhad Shami on Saturday released figures of casualties sustained due to Turkish attacks in the northeast.
The figures showed that the Turkish military used 7,000 artillery, tank and mortar shells in attacks on the areas in northeast Syria.
Turkey’s drones also carried out 89 attacks against those areas, according to the figures. As many as 1,300 other attacks were carried out using heavy weapons.
Eighty-nine civilians were killed and 134 others were wounded in the attacks, it said. More than 700 civilians were also abducted during the year.
Up to 148 SDF members were also killed in “anti-terrorism operations and resisting occupation”, the figures showed.
Twenty-two archaeological sites were “destroyed and looted”, according to the figures. Three towns, 58 villages, eight schools and one mosque were shelled last year.
Turkish forces have launched three incursions in the last five years, seizing hundreds of kilometers of border strip and pushing around 30 km (20 miles) into northern Syria.
Ankara considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG) a “terrorist group” closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), fighting a decades-old insurgency in southeast Turkey.
