Rojava conflict
| Rojava conflict | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Syrian Civil War | |
PYD supporters at a funeral
|
|
| Date | 19 July 2012 – present (4 years, 9 months and 2 days) |
| Location | Al-Hasakah Governorate, Raqqa Governorate, and Aleppo Governorate, Syria (de facto Afrin Canton, Jazira Canton, Kobanî Canton and Shahba region, Rojava) |
| Goals | |
| Methods | |
| Status |
Ongoing
|
| Casualties | |
| Death(s) | 17,215–17,241 |
Ongoing
The Rojava conflict, also known as the Rojava revolution, is a political upheaval, social revolution and military conflict taking place in Northern Syria, known as Rojava. During the Syrian Civil War, a coalition of Arab, Kurdish, Syriac and some Turkmen groups have sought to establish the Constitution of Rojava inside the de facto autonomous region, while military wings and allied militias have fought to maintain control of the region. The revolution has been characterized by the prominent role played by women both on the battlefield and within the newly formed political system, as well as the implementation of democratic confederalism, a form of grassroots democracy based on local assemblies.
The area is strategically important, because it contains a large percentage of Syria's oil supplies.
Repression of the Kurds and other ethnic minorities has gone on since the creation of the French Mandate of Syria after the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Syrian government (officially known as the Syrian Arab Republic) never officially acknowledged the existence of the Kurds and in 1962 120,000 Syrian Kurds were stripped of their citizenship, leaving them stateless. The Kurdish language and culture have also been suppressed. The government attempted to resolve these issues in 2011 by granting all Kurds citizenship, but only an estimated 6,000 out of 150,000 stateless Kurds have been given nationality and most discriminatory regulations, including the ban on teaching Kurdish, are still on the books. Due to the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, the government is no longer in a position to enforce these laws.
In 2004, riots broke out against the government in the northeastern city of Qamishli. During a soccer match between a local Kurdish team and a visiting Arab team from Deir ez-Zor, some Arab fans brandished portraits of Saddam Hussein (who slaughtered tens of thousands of Kurds in Southern Kurdistan during the genocidal Al-Anfal campaign in the 1980s). Tensions quickly escalated into open protests, with Kurds raising their flag and taking to the streets to demand cultural and political rights. Security forces fired into the crowd, killing six Kurds, including three children. Protesters went on to burn down the Ba'ath Party's local office. At least 30 and as many as 100 Kurds were killed by the government before the protests were quelled. Thousands of Kurds fled to Iraq afterwards, where a refugee camp was established. Occasional clashes between Kurdish protesters and government forces occurred in the following years.
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Wikipedia