Humanitarian aid organizations and media agencies in North and East Syria protest German aid organization’s plan to renovate occupied houses in Cafrin

CAFRIN, Syria — In a letter of protest sent to the German Association for Hunger Aid (Welthungerhilfe), 28 human rights organizations and media agencies decried the organization’s support and funding for a project to renovate dozens of houses seized in the Turkish occupied city of Cafrin (Afrin) as encouragement of demographic engineering and calls on Welthungerhilfe to reverse the project.

Welthungerhilfe’s regional office based in Gaziantep, Turkey, recently announced a tender to renovate 400 houses in each of the occupied cities of Azaz and Cafrin, allegedly to house displaced persons from other parts of Syria there.

In their letter, the protesting organizations pointed out that the assistance, while in good faith, contributes directly to the perpetuation of the reality of occupation, settlement, demographic change, and attacks on the private property of displaced persons.

The letter also warned of the existence of suspicious Turkish projects to perpetuate its occupation, carry out demographic change, and take ownership of property from displaced persons living in camps outside the area of occupation.

The German aid organisation @Welthungerhilfe is taking a major role in the Turkish main plan of demographic change in Afrin by financing a project to clad the houses whose residents have been displaced by the pro-Turkish militias, aiming to resettle those from Eastern Ghouta. pic.twitter.com/oaAAMTX7wi

— VdC-NsY Northern Syria (@vdcnsy) October 28, 2020