![Manbij has been controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF since 2016 [Getty]](https://www.newarab.com/sites/default/files/2021-06/GettyImages-1176008900.jpg)
Kurdish-led forces stop conscription in Syria's Manbij after eight killed in protests
Kurdish-led forces stop conscription in Syria's Manbij after eight killed in protests
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces militia group has agreed to stop conscription of young people in Manbij after its fighters violently suppressed protests by local people, killing eight and injuring scores.
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Manbij has been controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF since 2016 [Getty]
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have announced that they will stop all conscription in the city of Manbij in northern Syria following protests which were violently suppressed by SDF fighters.
The SDF-led civil and military administration said in a statement that it had accepted the demands of citizens of Manbij to cease its campaign of compulsory conscription and announced that it would investigate and punish those responsible for violence against civilians.
On Tuesday, thousands of people in Manbij defied an SDF curfew to protest forced drafting of young men and women.
The protesters were fired on by SDF troops, with eight people being killed and scores injured according to security and medical sources who spoke to Reuters.
Local activists told the German Press Agency (DPA) that the SDF had brought in fighters from the town of Kobane to help suppress the protests, after losing control of a checkpoint in Manbij.
The SDF’s civil and military administration in Manbij said on Wednesday that it would form a committee to hold fighters who had killed and injured protesters to account.
Sources in the city told The New Arab’s Arabic-language service that meetings were ongoing between the SDF administration and notables from Manbij and surrounding villages over the conscription issue.
Manbij, a prominently Arab city of nearly 100,000 inhabitants in Syria’s Aleppo province was captured by the US-backed Kurdish-led SDF from the Islamic State group in 2016. The city is on the frontline between SDF-held territory and areas of northern Syria held by Turkish-backed Syrian forces.
Turkey, which considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF to be a terrorist group, has repeatedly rejected the SDF presence in the city.
The SDF practice of forcibly conscripting young people has also caused great resentment among the city’s inhabitants, some of whom accuse the SDF of pursuing discriminatory practices against Arabs
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