Statement to the public [original here]
Since 23/10/2024, the regions of Northern and Eastern Syria have witnessed a new wave of escalation in which the Turkish occupying state has targeted the already fragile infrastructure and services due to the siege imposed on the region’s population and the long duration of the ongoing war in the country.
Turkey has carried out 1,031 attacks, leaving 17 martyrs and 65 injured. These attacks have left many civilian victims, including children and women, by directly targeting medical points, bakeries, grain silos, power stations, a cheese and milk factory, an animal feed factory and some oil installations.
These unjustified attacks on the region’s population and infrastructure, in addition to the continued water cuts, expose the region to an extremely dangerous environmental situation and confirm that the methodology of the Turkish government and its army is aimed at destruction and annihilation. The effects of this systematic policy can be seen in the deprivation of the people of the region of their natural resources, such as the deliberate and premeditated water cuts for more than a decade, which have turned the Mesopotamian region (Mesopotamia) into a semi-arid desert, lacking water and food, after having been a cradle of agricultural wealth.
Today’s repeated attacks on oil installations confirm that the region is experiencing sustained pollution and devastating long-term environmental impacts, with consequent threats to biodiversity and disruption of ecosystems. This pollution, resulting from the use of various types of lethal weapons, can extend to water and pose a threat to health and agriculture, in clear defiance of international environmental law, human rights and sovereignty.
We as Green Tress Environmental Association, condemn the Turkish state’s methodology of extermination against the components of the region and its nature, and call upon all environmental movements, environmental activists, democratic forces and human rights defenders to raise a loud voice to condemn these crimes against people and nature.
