Woman allegedly raped by troops after being captured crossing border

A woman was raped and beaten severely allegedly after she was taken to custody with her children, when she was captured by Turkish troops as she tried to illegally cross the border from Syria into Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said late Monday.

The woman was in her forties, from the town of Tel Tamr northwest of the city of Al-Hasakah, and she was traveling with her five children to find a route to migrate to Europe seeking safe haven, SOHR said citing local activists.

She was raped, and brutally beaten by the Turkish border guards while under custody, and was later dumped naked on the other side of the border, according to the report.

Border guards on the Syrian side, affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), found her and took her to the hospital for treatment.

The governerate of Al-Hasakah is located in the northeast corner of Syria, bordering Turkey and Iraq.

SOHR reported earlier on 24 October that a human smuggler was killed by the Turkish border guards near Al-Nasriyah southwest of the city of Jinderes while he was assisting a group of migrants to cross into Turkey.

According to SOHR, nineteen people have been killed along the border by Turkish troops in 2022, including three children and a woman. A further 24 have been injured, including three children.