Syrian families are settling into the 901 briquette houses built by the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) in the war-torn country's northwestern Idlib province.

Kızılay has finished constructing 901 houses in the town of Kafr Lusin as it continues its efforts to build 5,000 briquette houses in Idlib.

Hatay Deputy Governor Oğuzhan Bingöl, Kızılay General Director Ibrahim Altan and Emine Taş, head of the For Children Smile Foundation, were among those present at the opening of the housing development.

Altan noted that so far, 2,461 houses have been handed over to families, with 2,189 of the houses in the Idlib region and 272 in the Azaz region.

He added that beside the houses, a school was also opened so the children who have been victims of war can continue their education. Furthermore, efforts for additional infrastructure, including clean drinking water, are also ongoing.

Taş from For Children Smile told Anadolu Agency (AA) that 22 classrooms have been opened for the children.

“We departed on this road with the slogan that education changes the world. We gifted the children a smile. We succeeded. Another dream was made true,” Taş said.

Thanks to the briquette houses built in the countryside of Idlib with the support of Turkish nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international aid associations under the coordination of Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and Hatay governorate, families no longer have to live in tent camps where they are vulnerable to the elements, especially during the winter months.

Since launching several operations in northern Syria to fight terrorism, Turkey has been supporting every aspect of life in the region, from health to education, security and agriculture. In this respect, efforts to clear bombs and improvised explosive devices were launched and administration duties were given to local councils. The country also rolled up its sleeves to reconstruct hospitals, schools, mosques and roads destroyed by the terror groups. Within the scope of ameliorating the region's social infrastructure, people were given food and clothing by several NGOs while roads and buildings were rebuilt. These efforts paid off as hundreds of displaced Syrians started to return to the liberated areas.

In line with its goal to rejuvenate the region, Turkey is also building briquette houses for Syrians in the northwestern Idlib province, the last opposition bastion.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced in May that Ankara is planning to build 200,000 homes in northern Syria for a quarter of all refugees to resettle voluntarily.

"With financing from international aid groups, we've been working on a project to construct 200,000 homes at 13 different locations in Syria to relocate 1 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, including schools and hospitals," Erdoğan said.

The briquette houses in safe areas provide a secure shelter for Syrian fleeing the oppression of the Bashar Assad regime and its backer Russia.

For years, the Assad regime has ignored the needs and safety of the Syrian people, only eyeing further gains of territory and crushing the opposition. With this aim, the regime has for years bombed vital facilities like schools, hospitals and residential areas, causing the displacement of almost half of the country’s population while adopting policies to make their lives more difficult.

Incarceration horror in regime prisons

Apart from the bombing of vital facilities and displacing Syrians, the regime also systematically uses the practice of torture.

With pain and fear writ large on his face, a former inmate of Syrian prisons run by the Assad regime recounted the torture and abuse he faced during incarceration.

In an interview with AA on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture observed on June 26, Muhammed Salih Assaf, who was released on June 9, recalled the inhumane torture and cruelties he witnessed during his imprisonment.

In 2017, Assaf was detained by YPG terrorists, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, during a family visit in Afrin at the age of 17 and was handed over to the regime's security units.

Assaf spent about five years in regime prisons.

After footage of the "Tadamon Massacre" carried out by the Assad regime forces surfaced in April, the regime passed a "repentance law."

Syria's military intelligence service conducted the massacre in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus in April 2013, with Palestinians among the 41 victims, according to a report by British daily The Guardian. Members of military intelligence Branch 227 made civilians run toward a mass grave while shooting at them.

According to the latest figures released by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the Assad regime released only 539 people under the amnesty law. The organization said that at least 151,462 people are still held in regime prisons.

Assaf said he was handed over to regime forces by PKK/YPG terrorists during Operation Olive Branch launched by Turkey in the northwestern district of Afrin in early 2018.

"They were inflicting all kinds of torture. They tortured (inmates) with plastic water pipes and sticks. I had wounds all over my body. They enjoyed the torture they inflicted on us."

Underlining that he was randomly selected under the so-called amnesty law, Assaf said fellow prisoners asked him to inform their families of their whereabouts. "All I want is for everyone to be released and their torture to end," he said./aa