World Council of Arameans [Syriacs]

YPG-YPJ Kurds Kidnap Young Aramean Woman In Northeast Syria: Terrorization Of Christians

On Sunday, 3 July 2022, the female YPJ Kurds kidnapped a young Aramean woman, Rasha Chamoun, in broad daylight in northeast Syria’s Malikiyah (Kurdish: Derik) – last year, their male counterpart abducted an Aramean in this town. Seven days of efforts to resolve the matter diplomatically were all futile. Despite repeated promises from Mazloum Abdi’s office, the military leader of the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Rasha still has not been released and her family has not been allowed to visit or speak with her.

Rasha, 36, is the victim of a baseless accusation concocted by the YPJ militia and a murky plot that led to her abduction by this all-female counterpart of the YPG Kurds. Yesterday, Afram Ibrahim, a senior official of the small group of Aramean puppets working for the YPG, said he had visited a female prison where she was allegedly being held, but he did not find her there. Because neither her family nor the local religious leaders have been granted to meet or talk to her, the Chamoun family is deeply concerned about whether or not Rasha is still alive and well.

The following report is based on exclusive information from her family in Sweden and Germany and the church officials who have been directly engaged, in vain, with the SDF/PYD/YPG/YPJ. Because all promises to release or see Rasha turned out to be empty and merely a stalling tactic, probably because she was tortured and her bruises need some days to heal and disappear first, the family now desperately attempts to publicize this abduction case to free Rasha.

Rasha used to work as a secretary at the SDF/PYD/YPG-controlled court in Malikiyah, taking minutes of numerous court cases. Three years ago, however, she decided to move to Damascus due to medical reasons and because she attempted to emigrate to Sweden to unite with her parents and siblings who had left their homeland five years earlier. During her time in the capital of Syria, she found a new job and began to work for a charity to help destitute families.

About 1,5-2 years ago, she visited her hometown for 15 days before returning to the capital city. Until yesterday’s buzz was spread by Kurds who are close to the PYD/YPG, nobody had ever raised the idea of Rasha being a spy for the Syrian military intelligence services during her work at the court in Malikiyah. After being held for six days, Rasha’s relatives in Sweden and Germany were shocked and outraged to hear this rumor, which until now has not been officially charged against her, while rebutting the false allegations against their daughter, sister and cousin.

Since many houses and lands of Aramean Christians have been and continue to be confiscated by the PYD/YPG Kurds in northeast Syria, especially of those who have fled their homeland Syria (an underreported case that deserves an investigative story by the mainstream media), some Arameans return from time to time home in an effort to secure their property. So, too, the father of Rasha, who in 2014 fled the turmoil in Syria to Sweden together with his wife and children; Rasha was the only child who did not have the opportunity to join them at the time.

Because she wanted to see her father again, who spoke with the local bishop and the self-appointed Kurdish rulers to obtain her civil and religious divorce papers since his daughter left her husband four years ago, Rasha returned to Malikiyah and stayed there for nearly seven weeks until she disappeared. After attending the holy mass on Sunday that also commemorated last year’s passing of her father’s two aunts, at 2 p.m. local time Rasha received a phone call from a female Arab friend and former colleague who also gave up her job at the court to open her own law firm in her hometown of Rmelan in the Hasakah governorate. Following their first meeting 15 days earlier, they agreed to meet again for lunch in the city center of Malikiyah.

Rasha informed her relatives that she would see her, but after 20 minutes they lost contact and later they learned that she was taken by the YPJ and the YPG. Contacting this friend turned out to be fruitless. First she said she had not seen Rasha for years, but when her aunt reminded her that they had met just recently, she admitted this, stated that she knew nothing about the case and suddenly hung up the phone. After this call, her family could no longer reach this woman, assuming that she betrayed Rasha and is one way or another involved in her planned abduction.

A vague encounter that took place a few days earlier may contain clues or another possible motive. In order to obtain certain documents, Rasha went to the court in Malikiyah where she used to work with a high-profile Kurdish woman with whom Rasha was not on speaking terms. When Rasha saw her there, she ignored and did not greet her. This did not go unnoticed by the people who were present and that woman appears to be a suspect too. Some relatives speculate that she even may have instructed the Arab friend to ensnare Rasha by calling her to meet up.

The WCA President, Johny Messo, condemns this abduction case and demands the immediate release of an innocent young woman whose legal and human rights have been infringed, adding: “What is left of the values like freedom of expression, equality, justice and human rights the SDF/PYD/YPG/YPJ have been propagating in the West? Mazloum and his colleagues have some serious and urgent explanation to do to their American and European partners.”

This human rights violation is merely one of many that Arameans have experienced in northeast Syria since the PYD/YPG rose to power. Because the mainstream media are not reporting on this and other egregious human rights violations and politicians similarly remain silent, the crimes of the perpetrators keep being whitewashed whereas the victims continue to suffer and disappear from their ancestral homeland that is increasingly Kurdified. One example is the town of Malikiyah (Kurdish: Derik): before the PYD/YPG Kurds took over this region in 2012 there were some 2,000 Christian (nearly all Aramean) families, whereas a decade later there remain only 520 Aramean (and ca. 30 Armenian) families.

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Download the Press Release here.