The young man, Waheed Bakr Bakr, 25 years old, from the village of Juwayq in the city of Afrin, northern Syria, was killed on the evening of Friday, December 5, 2025, after being shot by gunmen while heading home following a visit to his relatives in the village of Ain Hajjar.
Sources reported that the incident occurred around 8:30 PM on the Juwayq–Ain Hajjar road, where gunmen attempted to stop him in order to steal his motorcycle. When he did not stop, they fired at him, resulting in a gunshot wound to the head.
The injured young man was taken to a hospital in the city of Afrin, where the “Public Security” affiliated with the interim authority, “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” attempted to cover up the crime by presenting it as a traffic accident. However, images circulated on social media showed that he had been directly shot, confirming that he was deliberately killed.
This crime is part of a series of violations targeting Kurds in the city of Afrin, amid escalating violence since Turkey’s occupation of the predominantly Kurdish city on March 18, 2018. This was followed by the displacement of around 400,000 original residents, alongside cases of killing, kidnapping, torture, and extortion, amid a lack of justice and accountability and ongoing security chaos.
