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Regime-run Idlib Governorate Intensifies Efforts to Invest in Absentee-owned Pistachio Farms

03-09-2024/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Since the spring, the Damascus-run Idlib governorate has embarked on an intensive campaign to invest in all vacant lands planted with pistachio trees whose owners have fled to opposition-controlled areas. To achieve this, the governorate continues to survey and identify these vacant lands, regardless of their size.

In 2022, the Idlib governorate established committees to determine the current ownership of vacant agricultural lands. These committees identified lands owned by absentee displaced persons and those forcibly displaced to opposition areas. The governorate periodically organises public auctions to invest in these lands based on directives issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, with the approval of the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Idlib governorate has begun preparing to invest the lands of absentee forcibly displaced persons for the 2024-2025 season. On April 22, it issued Announcement No. 276, calling on owners of pistachio farms to submit documents proving their ownership, in order to exempt their lands from the public auctions. Farmers who can prove ownership may invest in their lands personally, while those who fail to do so will see their lands put up for auction for others to invest in.

The governorate has set the starting price for investing in one hectare of pistachio-planted land at SYP 20,300,000 for the current season’s auctions, which is the price at which auction sessions will commence. The terms and procedures for this season’s auctions remain unchanged from previous seasons. They are based on Ministry of Agriculture Directive No. 289 issued on May 16, 2024, which is itself based on the provisions of Law No. 51 of 2004 concerning the contract system for public entities. Directive No. 289 specifies that the initial deposit required to participate in the auction is SYP 150,000; in the event of winning the auction, a final deposit of 10 percent of the total investment amount must be paid, along with SYP 50,000 for the technical dossier. In all cases, the bidder must present prior security clearance to enter the auction and obtain a financial clearance certificate from the Idlib governorate’s Finance Directorate.

There are around 10,000 hectares of pistachio farmland in regime-controlled areas of Idlib, containing more than 1.6 million trees, according to figures published by the state-run newspaper Tishreen in July 2023.

The main committee for agricultural investment in the regime-run part of Idlib, which includes the governor, the chief of police, the secretary of the ruling Baath Party branch, the head of the Directorate of Agriculture, and the heads of agricultural associations, had decided that July 22, 2024 would be the start date for that year’s pistachio harvest. Beginning on July 24, 2024, the governorate’s General Secretariat began issuing pistachio harvest permits to investors and landowners, either in person or through a special power of attorney duly certified by a notary and accompanied by a civil registration extract for the authorised agent. This harvest permit serves as an authorisation for pistachio picking, allowing the landowner or investor to access their land without being stopped at regime forces’ checkpoints or by patrols in the fields.

The governorate’s General Secretariat announced on its official Facebook page that July 25, would be the final deadline for settling financial obligations, warning that failure to do so would result in the seizure of movable and immovable assets of investors, a travel ban, and the imposition of price differences if the same lands were re-auctioned.

Then, on July 30, the General Secretariat posted another notice on Facebook, requiring investors in pistachio lands for the 2024 season to settle their financial obligations within 48 hours of the announcement, under the threat of unspecified “penalties.” The financial obligations that must be settled include the initial deposit of SYP 150,000, and a final deposit of 10 percent of the total contract value for the land investment and SYP 50,000 for the technical dossier.

The General Secretariat of Idlib later put up what it described as “hidden lands” for investment during the public auction held on August 5. These were lands that had not been included in previous auctions for various reasons, such as being deliberately overlooked by committees due to bribes, being accidentally omitted because the plots were too small, or being commonly owned within other larger plots. Identifying these lands is difficult, which has led to a new group of investors actively seeking them out, hoping to gain an advantage by investing in them at lower prices compared to neighbouring lands. This was highlighted in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Directive No. 433, issued on August 4, 2024.

On August 13, the General Secretariat held a new round of public auctions for pistachio farms that either had no bidders in previous auctions or where the winners failed to pay the financial deposits required to invest in them. According to lists published on the General Secretariat’s Facebook page on August 12, the total area of these lands amounted to 168 hectares.

On August 23, the General Secretariat rejected 50 applications submitted by farmers seeking to prove ownership of their lands or to establish their kinship with absent owners of vacant pistachio-planted lands. If these applications had been approved, the farmers would have been able to personally invest in their lands or participate in auctions reserved for relatives. As a result of the rejection, an additional 153 hectares of pistachio-planted land were reintroduced into the public auctions for special investment by relatives, based on mutual agreements among them.

As the pistachio harvest began, the price per kilo of uncleaned and unprocessed pistachios, known as “Armosh,” ranged between SYP 32,000 and 37,000, while the sorted and boxed pistachios were priced between SYP 85,000 and 100,000. These prices were based on the pistachio market rates in the city of Mork, north of Hama, which is the central market for pistachios in regime-controlled areas of Hama and Idlib.

Sahl Al-Ghab: FAO Funds Rehabilitation of Water Channels for Lands Belonging to Forcibly Displaced People

31-10-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

The General Commission for the Administration and Development of Al-Ghab (GCADA), in cooperation with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has completed the rehabilitation and maintenance of a section of a main irrigation canal that waters agricultural lands, some of which are owned by individuals forcibly displaced from the area. The lands were previously listed for public auction by the Hama governorate for investment purposes.

The GCADA, with its main office in the city of Al-Suqaylabiyeh in rural Hama, is an administrative and service-oriented body tied to the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform. It is a legal entity with financial independence and administrative autonomy.

According to an official report published in the Tishreen newspaper on October 22, the rehabilitation included the removal of damaged concrete tiles along both sides of the canal, restoring the tiles and walls to their original state using technical methods and adhering to approved specifications to ensure smooth water flow without any waste or loss. Workers also maintained the gates and iron doors on the canal.

The director of the Irrigation and Drainage Department at the Commission stated that the rehabilitation works covered a section of the J-2 canal from the Tari Al-Ala – Al-Asharneh irrigation network, extending over a distance of six kilometres, between the towns of Khirbet Dams and Asilah. The total length of the J-2 canal is 49 kilometres, stretching from the city of Mhardeh to the Al-Bared River highway west of Hama. It irrigates about 14,840 hectares of agricultural land in the Al-Ghab area in the Hama governorate.

A correspondent for The Syria Report in the region pointed out that on both sides of the J-2 canal, especially west of the city of Mhardeh, agricultural lands belonging to villages and farms whose inhabitants were forcibly displaced to opposition-held areas in northwest Syria. Some of these villages and farms are almost entirely deserted, such as the town of Al-Treimseh and the farms of Al-Rawda, Al-Khwaitat, Al-Karama, and lands belonging to the towns of Al-Asharneh and Jirjisiya. The Hama governorate has put the lands of those absentees up for investment in public auctions held annually.

According to official statements, the area of agricultural land benefiting from the canal rehabilitation project exceeds 2,093 hectares, belonging to around 2,000 farmers and investors. The GCADA aims to rehabilitate and maintain 28,000 square metres of canals, irrigation networks, culverts, and existing metal protection fences in the Mhardeh area, extending to the city of Salhab, with funding from the FAO. Associations were formed for irrigation water investors who will be trained by FAO workshops on optimal usage of the canals and maintaining their safety and equipment for the longest possible time.

The Syria Report’s correspondent mentioned plans to rehabilitate other sections of the J-1 irrigation canal in Sahl Al-Ghab. One of the sections currently being rehabilitated is located in the Al-Asharneh plain southeast of Sahl Al-Ghab, connecting the towns of Sheizar and Al-Asharneh, and irrigating an area of about 24,000 hectares. It is not clear whether FAO or another international organisation will fund this project.

This is not the first time that rehabilitation work were carried out with funding from non-governmental and international organisations on projects that violate the property rights of absent landowners who have been forcibly displaced. In November 2022, with funding from the French Islamic Aid Organisation Secours Islamique France, 3,060 metres of the J-4 canal in the Qalaat Al-Madiq area in Sahl Al-Ghab were maintained, irrigating lands of those forcibly displaced from the area extending from west of Qalaat Al-Madiq city to the town of Al-Hawash to the north.

Property Rights Violations Continue in Ras Al-Ayn and Tal Abyad

12-09-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Nearly four years ago, in October 2019, factions from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) took control of a strip of borderland between Syria and Turkey, which includes the cities of Tal Abyad in the Raqqa governorate and Ras Al-Ayn in the Hassakeh governorate.

The region had been under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2013 and was governed by majority-Kurdish autonomous administration institutions, while some departments and institutions of the Damascus government remained present at that time.

After the SNA factions took over this strip of borderland, many residents – especially Kurds – fled towards the Kurdistan region of neighbouring Iraq and to areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) in Hassakeh and Raqqa.

Many of these displaced people are still reluctant to return, seeing the unstable security situation in their hometowns. This fear is reinforced by reports of violations by the opposition SNA factions toward displaced former residents’ housing, land and property rights. These factions have seized homes and businesses of the displaced Kurds, justifying their actions by accusing them of affiliating with the SDF or collaborating with the AANES.

Keljehan Harsan was displaced from Ras Al-Ayn and is currently staying in her sister’s house in Amouda. She told a correspondent for The Syria Report that since her forced displacement in 2019, she has been worried about what happened to the house she left behind. Harsan’s Arab neighbours who remained in Ras Al-Ayn told her that her house was looted and burnt. In that house, Keljehan left memories of her family and was only able to take the bare essentials with her, as she feared oncoming clashes. She left all the awards that her late musician husband had received and old possessions of her children who are now living scattered around the world.

Hendrin Eeso, who was forcibly displaced from Ras Al-Ayn to the city of Qamishli, told The Syria Report that her family left behind a two-storey building, which is now inhabited by a displaced family from Deir-ez-Zor without any legal basis or financial compensation. Eeso said that her family left behind all their furniture and personal necessities, and they are now living in a rented home in Qamishli.

The vast majority of the Kurds residents of Ras al-Ayn, were displaced after the SNA took control of the city. However, many Arabs were also forcibly displaced from the city, leaving their properties behind.

Khalid Al-Ahmad, who today resides in the Al-Twina camp in Hassakeh, said that his son used to work for an AANES institution. Fearing retribution and arbitrary detention by the SNA, the entire family left the city. Ahmad said he fears returning and would prefer to sell his house in Ras Al-Ayn to buy another one in Hassakeh. However, he added that he forgot to take the title deeds of the house when they left: “Even if I had the ownership papers with me, under the current circumstances, no one would buy the house.”

About 20,000 displaced people from Ras Al-Ayn live in the camps of Al-Talai, Al-Twina, and Tel Al-Samn in Hassakeh amid harsh conditions such as scarce water supply and desert temperature fluctuations, according to The Syria Report correspondent.

One resident, who is now living in a house left behind by someone displaced from Tel Abyad, told The Syria Report that an armed faction asked him to house another family with him in exchange for USD 2,000 and for an undetermined duration. This resident is not renting the house and does not even know the original owner; he simply occupied it. The resident said that a similar offer was made by the armed faction to many occupants of properties left vacant by the displaced.

The families they are often asked to house are usually forcibly displaced from opposition areas like the countryside of Damascus, and fight alongside the SNA.

In return, residents who agree to shelter such families receive a written unofficial guarantee from the armed faction stating that no entity can evict them from the property. This note aims to prevent the original property owner from reclaiming their home if they return to the area.

Meanwhile, some factions make returnees pay a “protection” fee of as much as USD 1,000 to assist them in reclaiming their vacant properties or evicting the current occupants. Unofficial and undocumented measures like this can lead to many disputes between the armed factions over residences in their zones of influence. Some returnees might even face monetary demands for protection from multiple factions at once.

According to a 2021 report prepared by lawyers from the PÊL- Civil Waves NGO operating in AANES areas, opposition factions have taken over more than 3,000 homes of those forcibly displaced from Ras Al-Ayn alone. Some of these homes are occupied by newly displaced people who have come to the region, including Iraqis. For instance, in the neighbourhoods of Al-Mahatta and Al-Kharabat in Ras Al-Ayn, more than 20 Iraqi families have resided in homes belonging to displaced individuals since 2019, without any legal documentation formally allowing them to do so.

Property ownership documents for all towns and rural areas of the Hassakeh governorate are preserved in the land registry located in the security square under the control of regime forces in the centre of Hassakeh city. Specialised rooms in the Hassakeh courthouse handle the tasks of the Ras Al-Ayn courts. This provides some reassurance to property owners displaced from Ras Al-Ayn, as no unlawful changes can be made in the property records.

However, on the flip side, this protection remains only theoretical for properties currently occupied and used by those other than the rightful owners. Harsan said that her family loses the annual agricultural yield from a piece of land spanning 200 hectares, as armed faction members control and exploit the area without any compensation.

Who Owns the Apartments that Spanish NGO Rescate Renovated in Aleppo’s Al-Shaar Neighbourhood?

18-07-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

In March 2021, the Spanish NGO Rescate announced on Facebook that it was planning to rehabilitate damaged residential apartments in the Al-Shaar neighbourhood of east Aleppo and invited building contractors to submit tenders for the project. However, the organisation does not mention the owners of the damaged apartments or their situation in its technical, financial, and legal booklets on the project.

Sources in Al-Shaar told The Syria Report that the bid did not succeed due to a disagreement between the Aleppo City Council and the Syria Trust for Development (STD) on the one hand and Rescate on the other. The dispute was over the locations of the apartments slated for renovation, whether they were inhabited, and who owned them. Rescate re-launched the same project in August 2022 but made no mention of whether it resolved these disputes or if they were ongoing.

One source in Al-Shaar said that the renovation began in the last quarter of 2022 and that the owners handed over their apartments to the Aleppo City Council at the start of 2023. The source added that the renovations targeted apartments identified by the City Council and that Rescate was not free to choose the flats or distribution areas itself. According to the source, some of the renovated apartments belong to absentees and IDPs who had been forcibly displaced from Aleppo, while others are owned by City Council employees, security officers, and officials from the STD.

Al-Shaar was among the most heavily damaged neighbourhoods in the regime’s aerial and artillery bombardment of Aleppo between 2012 and 2016 when opposition forces controlled the city’s eastern half. The regime besieged thousands of residents in the district, especially in the small, high-density side streets, notably Sidd Al-Louz Street. The Russian air force used concussion bombs and vacuum missiles in its bombardment. Meanwhile, regime warplanes frequently dropped barrel bombs on residential buildings, most of which were five storeys high.

According to Rescate’s booklet of technical specifications and conditions published on Facebook, the apartment renovation project is titled “Rehabilitation of Damaged Apartments in Aleppo Neighbourhoods.” This project is a part of the humanitarian inter-sector Operational Plan for Collective Shelters in Aleppo (Eastern Aleppo city) as Rescate, as part of the Aleppo response plan, was assigned a part of the rehabilitation task in the city. Rescate said that this action meets the urgent needs of returnees’ women, men and children through shelter upgrade works in 150 apartments. The specification and technical conditions booklet did not mention who owns these apartments or whether this work is being done with their consent.

BoQ (price tender-bill of quantities) No. 20434 issued by Rescate, entitled “Rehabilitation of Damaged Apartments,” describes some of the works required to be completed by the project contractor. They include construction works such as clearing the project site to start work, removing debris, transporting it to official landfills, removing waste and rubble, and cleaning floors. The project also requires concrete works, finishes, electrical, water, and sewage work, maintenance work, and repairs to standard utilities of the buildings. The project’s total cost was listed as SYP 9,927,822 (around USD 1000 at the official rate and USD 900 at the black market rate).

Rescate’s specifications booklet clarifies that it appointed an engineer and created a supervision mechanism alongside its local partner in Aleppo (which was not named in the document). The local partner will oversee the project. The contract lasts 60 days, with an initial deposit of SYP 4 million and a final payment of 10 percent of the contract value.

The booklet also explained the conditions that the bidder must comply with, including having a recent registration certificate from a Syrian chamber of commerce or industry, a notarised certificate of their registration as a contractor in the Contractors’ Syndicate, a copy of the bidder’s criminal record proving they are not convicted of a felony or other heinous crime, and a statement from the bidder saying that they do not own or participate in any factory, institution, branch office or entity in Israel. One of the contractor’s obligations is to rely on some technical staff and suppliers from residents or those affected by the crisis in the area, whose names are proposed by the organisation and considered part of the work team.

The Syria Report could not identify the contractor who signed the contract with Rescate to complete the project. However, another source in Aleppo Governorate from the neighbourhood said that Al-Shaar is under the control of the Baqir Brigade militia, supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, based in the Al-Balloua neighbourhood of east Aleppo. The source added that most construction commitments in Al-Shaar, and East Aleppo are generally awarded to contractors with close ties with the militia.

Omar Al-Hassan, the political officer in the Baqir Brigade and a former member of the Syrian Parliament, is the intermediary for all construction work associated with the militia in east Aleppo, the source added. Hassan reportedly manages various construction crews and oversees factories producing construction blocks and white stones. He also owns warehouses for storing and trading cement and runs rubble recycling crushers in the Hilan and Handarat areas in Aleppo.

In 2019, Rescate tried to transport, crush, and sort rubble to extract materials to make cement bricks for construction in Aleppo. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funded the experiment with support from the STD and the Aleppo City Council. According to a statement by the head of Aleppo City Council to the official SANA news agency in March 2019, the experiment was successful, morphing into a project to produce 8,000 cement brick blocks.

The City Council president said at the time that the international entities funding the project ensured the provision of machinery and equipment, and ownership of the equipment would go to the Aleppo City Council after the project’s completion in December 2021.

Rescate also oversaw the preparation of the popular market of Deir Hafer in rural Aleppo in partnership with the STD, the Aleppo governorate, and the Deir Hafer City Council.

Palestinian Aid Group Builds Settlement for Displaced Syrians in Afrin

09-05-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

The Ajnadin Palestine displacement camp for Syrians officially opened on January 04, 2023, in the Afrin region in the northern part of the Aleppo governorate. Referred to as a “village,” the project aims to secure semi-permanent alternative housing for displaced Syrians in opposition-held areas. A local group called the Idlib Nation Team, active in Afrin, built the village with support and funding from Ajnadin, a Palestinian NGO based in the Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Bayt Hanina.

According to media reports, Ajnadin transferred the funds for the village from its account in the Israeli Habolim Bank. The fact that a Palestinian NGO in Israeli-occupied territory is funding a displacement housing project in Syria sheds light on the sheer depth of the crisis faced by displaced Syrians.

A source from Ajnadin told The Syria Report that the newly built village contains 50 dwellings for 50 families who had previously been living in displacement camps in rural Afrin. Each home has two bedrooms, a salon, a kitchen, and a bathroom, totalling around 45 square metres. There are two one-cubic-metre water tanks per unit, interior doors and windows, two main iron doors, and a 35-square-metre garden. A sewage network services the entire village. It also has a mosque and an Islamic studies centre for teaching Sharia and Quran.

The village is built on about 2.50 hectares of flat un-planted agricultural land near Shatika, a town in the Jandares district west of Afrin. However, the existing 50 dwellings only occupy one hectare of land, with the remainder set aside for a future stage of expansion in the project to build more housing units.

In the second phase of the village, the Idlib Nation Team will build 50 more homes and a school. Construction was supposed to begin in the first few months of 2023 but was postponed until the end of the year due to the February 06 earthquake, a source from the Idlib Nation Team told The Syria Report.

The Idlib Nation Team increased its support for the village and its residents after the earthquake. It set up a camp of dozens of tents to accommodate people affected by the disaster. The organisation was also in charge of implementing this project and confirmed it opened a village school last March for the children.

A source from the Idlib Nation Team told The Syria Report that the local council in Jandares granted the organisation land to build the village. The source added that Turkish officials in the area approved the project. However, the contract between the organisation and the local council does not indicate that the team owns the land or the residential units. Rather, the organisation’s role, according to the contract, is limited to the construction and supervision of housing operations. The local council is responsible for managing the village.

The homes cannot be sold or transferred to the families who live there. These families only have the right to use the housing units and cannot lease them. Therefore, according to the source, the village effectively belongs to the Jandares Local Council.

In 2018, Turkey-backed opposition factions took control of the entire Afrin region during Operation Olive Branch, forcing the displacement of much of the original population, most of whom were Kurds. There were also many violations of housing, land and property rights. In addition, more than 100,000 forcibly displaced people from the countryside of Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo also moved to Afrin, with many of them living in the homes of displaced Kurds.

A local source told The Syria Report that the land on which the village was built is not public or endowment property but privately owned by individuals from the Kurdish Manan family, which was forcibly displaced from the area in 2018. The opposition factions controlling the area accuse members of the Manan family of belonging to the majority Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Several family members were reportedly killed during the fighting in 2018.

The Manan family’s land is not an isolated case: it is among other lands that some opposition factions have extorted since 2018 on the pretext that their owners belong to the YPG. Sometimes, some factions grant these lands to local organisations to build residential villages to house the families of displaced opposition fighters from other parts of Syria.