Fighters from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) on Tuesday arrested three militants suspected of firing on Kurds celebrating the Nowruz holiday in the town of Jenderes on Monday, killing five people.
Military sources told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that fighters from the Front for Liberation and Construction, a sub-group of the Syrian National Army, stormed a house in Jenderes and detained two people believed to have fired on the Nowruz celebration. Another person had been arrested earlier.
Four Kurdish civilians, all from the same family, were killed by fighters believed to be from the Sharqiya faction of the SNA following an argument. A fifth civilian died of his wounds after being shot.
Jenderes is part of the Afrin pocket, a Kurdish-majority area of northwestern Syria that was formerly under the control of Syrian Kurdish militias, but was taken by Turkey and its allied Syrian fighters following a 2018 military operation.
Also on Thursday, thousands of people attended the funerals of the five slain Syrian Kurdish victims.
Many of those attending demanded the withdrawal of Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and the re-entry of Syrian Kurdish fighters into the area.
Turkey has launched several military operations since 2018 against Syrian Kurdish groups, which it accuses of being affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
A Syrian Kurdish resident of Afrin who gave his name as Roni, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: "From the beginning, we said that Nowruz is a holiday of peace, freedom and humanity, and a celebration of the Kurdish people… the Kurdish people are oppressed even in their holidays.
"This is our holiday, we can’t even have a day of happiness in our homes."