ISTANBUL (AA) – Syria’s Kurdish National Council has condemned members of the terrorist-affiliated PYD for reportedly transporting dead bodies of Free Syrian Army (FSA) soldiers in an open-top trailer after an armed clash.
“Displaying dozens of bodies in the back of a trailer belonging to the People’s Protection Units [YPG] in the city of Afrin [in Syria] has shaken Kurdish people’ conscience everywhere,” the Kurdish National Council said in a statement on Friday.
The council, which brings together 11 Kurdish political parties, described the episode as “brutal and barbaric”.
The YPG is the armed wing of the terrorist group PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the PYD.
According to local sources and FSA commanders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the clash between the FSA and the PYD lasted for about 10 hours Wednesday in the Ayn-Dakna village in Tel Rifaat, some 20 kilometers from the Turkish border.
The sources said that the terrorist PYD group repelled the FSA and that it brought about 50 dead bodies of FSA members to Afrin, which is close to Ayn-Dakna.
A resident of Afrin told Anadolu Agency that the PYD transported the bodies in an open-top trailer.
The militants also reportedly posted the images on social media.
The video footage purported to show PYD terrorists putting the bodies into the open-top trailer, and parading them down the streets of Afrin.
The authenticity of the footage could not be independently verified.
The sources said the FSA members who lost their lives in the clashes were citizens of Tel Rifaat. They added there was no Kurdish population in the region.
The PYD already controls most of northern Syria — along the border with Turkey — and is preparing to declare a federal system, a PYD spokesman said in March, according to some media reports.
However, Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen groups reject the federal system.
