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Brief narrative |
STJ obtained exclusive access to a document which includes one of the housing projects’ engineering plans. The document demonstrates that part of the residential village (housing estate)—to be constructed over an area of about 12 hectares in Jabal al-Ahlam— has already been completed. The engineering plan indicates that the project’s total area amounts to 122,533 m2, all located in a rural area covered by vegetation. According to one of the report’s sources, al-Furat Trading and Contracting Company developed the project’s engineering plan and conducted its field study in late 2020.1 The company worked under the directives of the Afrin City Local Council (ACLC). The Council acted on the orders of Afrin’s governor, Rahmi Doğan. Rahmi Doğan, the governor of the Turkish state of Hatay, was born in 1969 in Sivas, Anatolia Centre. He has held many government positions in Turkey, including the deputy governor of Kilis region, and the head of the provincial administration department in the Turkish Ministry of the Interior. He was appointed Governor/Governor of Hatay Region by Presidential DecreeNo. 202 of October 26, 2018. The decree dismissed 21 prefects and appointed 39 new governors. The project is divided into three housing blocks and includes two schools, two mosques, a clinic, a police station, six gardens, several water wells, and the main water tank. The same document demonstrates the ACLC also directed the Electricity Company to serve the area, and extended water and sewage networks with a sewage treatment plant that is supposed to serve neighboring agricultural lands. Additionally, the ACLC paved the internal roads and those leading to the project area, which is rugged terrain. According to the engineering plan, an area of 400 m2 has been designated for each housing unit. Each unit consists of three rooms, utilities, and a private water tank. Moreover, the project will include 5000 houses/housing units, sources reported to STJ. The sources added that 1000 units have already been built and residents are settled in. The project’s construction started in 2020 and was still ongoing when this report was being composed. The first block is about 30 km south of the second and third blocks. https://stj-sy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Housing-Settlements-in-Afrin-1.pdf |
