Zeki also said the identity of the town was totally changed.
He said Kurds from the town are no longer there and anything related to the Kurdish culture is also destroyed.
Thus, he left his hometown empty-handed for the second time and resorted to Qamishli city, which is under the joint control of the Syrian government and the Kurdish administration.
Zeki currently lives in a rented house and runs a small stationery in the city.
He expressed his pain regarding displacement, noting it is difficult to leave your home by armed force, so others can come and live in your house.
“Can you imagine that your home is about 35 km from you and you cannot return because strangers and invaders are living in it?
“To force people to leave their homes and let them watch from the outskirts as strangers occupy them—to let people just watch how their houses and shops are looted before their eyes, this cannot even be imagined in our present time.”
Despite the atrocities by the Turkish-backed militias, like looting, abduction, torture, and intimidation, Zeki hopes to return to his home one day.
Turkey launched its so-called “Peace Spring” Operation on Oct. 9, 2019, causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands and deaths of dozens of civilians.
Local Kurdish populations and multiple international observers see this as an intentional effort by Turkey to ethnically cleanse Kurds from areas along its southern borders. The United Nations has said there are strong indications that Turkish and Turkish-backed forces have already enacted such a campaign of forced demographic change in the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
(Additional reporting by Lava Asaad)