May 26, 2018

Hundreds demonstrated in Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Saturday, in response to a call by Kurdish authorities for global protests against Turkey's military presence in the flashpoint Afrin region.

Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels seized the northwest Afrin region from Kurdish fighters in March, after a two-month military offensive that prompted tens of thousands of people to flee.

Since then, thousands of people displaced from other parts of Syria -- notably the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus -- have been resettled in the emptied city.

Syria's Kurds, who have built up their own autonomous administrations in the chaos of the country's seven-year war, say that amounts to demographic change.

On Saturday, men and women marched through the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli to protest Turkey's military presence.