Syria: Accidental Shootings Common in Qamishli

In early June, 16-year-old-Ahmad was killed when his five-year-old brother fired off their father’s 9mm Star handgun.

Ahmad lived with his family in the Muwathafin neighbourhood in the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria. Since his father was at work, his mother asked him to keep an eye on his younger brother until she returned from the market.

“We heard a gunshot from Abu Ahmad’s house,” said Suleiman, Ahmad’s friend and neighbour. “When we went to see what had happened, we found Ahmad on the floor in a pool of blood, with his younger brother next to him holding their father’s gun.”

This is not an exceptional event in Qamishli. There are no official statistics of the numbers of accidental killings in Qamishli resulting from the misuse of weapons stored in homes. According to the head of an Asayish office –- the police arm of the Kurdish Supreme Council – most killings by family members are kept quiet so that the perpetrator can avoid punishment.

In one such incident, Abu Mohammad, a resident of the Halko neighbourhood, accidentally killed his wife while teaching her how to fire his pump-action shotgun.

“I killed her with my own hands,” said Abu Mohammad, tears streaming down his face as he hit his forehead and looked at his two small children.

Abu Mohammad, a night security guard, was teaching his wife how to use the weapon so that she could defend herself and their children while he was away. After finishing the lesson, he sat outside his bedroom and began disassembling the weapon in order to clean it, as his wife was in the kitchen washing dishes. Suddenly the gun went off. The bullet hit his wife, killing her instantly.

None of his wife’s family reported him to the authorities, so the police did not arrest him.

In the last two years, weapons have been sold openly in the markets of this Kurdish-majority city, without any oversight. Anyone looking for a weapon can simply head to Qamishli’s central market, known as the Turkish Souq, and choose from the items on display there. There are stalls selling both light and heavier weapons at prices that range between 20,000 and 180,000 Syrian pounds (11 to 1,000 US dollars) for heavier weapons. Handguns sell for 5,000 pounds.

One of the traders says the weapons on sake come from several sources, the most important of which is smuggling from Iraq and Turkey. Some regime-affiliated security forces sell their weapons before defecting.

In the past two years, many of Qamishli’s residents have acquired weapons in order to defend themselves from armed robberies.

“In Syria we are now living in a jungle with no security. We must have weapons in the house to protect ourselves from wild jungle animals,” said Akhteen, a shoe-store owner.

Abdel Aziz Ali, a resident of the Khaleej neighbourhood, says he bought a weapon out of fear of the thieves who are becoming increasingly common in Qamishli. Because of the number of accidental shootings, however, Abdel Aziz has changed his mind about keeping a weapon in the house and decided to sell it.

There is virtually no security in Qamishli is because government institutions are paralysed. The number of police officers has shrunk, and those who remain are primarily involved in administrative tasks like recording births and deaths. There are no police on the streets. The Kurdish parts of Qamishli – the majority of the city – come under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Kurdish Authority and its Asayish forces. However, lack of experience prevents these forces from maintaining security effectively, according to one Asayish commander who asked to remain anonymous.

The proliferation of weapons even affects Qamishli’s children. Some of them go to the market and buy handguns for 5,000 pounds.

“Teenagers are now using weapons to assert themselves, replacing the normal forms of teenage rebellion like stubbornness or smoking, particularly in this environment where arms are so widespread,” said psychologist and counsellor Mohammad Ali Othman.

Othman warns parents of the dangers of this phenomenon and urges them to teach their children about the threat that weapons pose.

The Supreme Kurdish Authority issued a decision in April regulating the carrying and sale of arms. It also asked residents to register their weapons with it. Based on this decision, Asayish forces have banned sales of weapons in the market and has confiscated arms, although it does not punish or fine offenders.

Abdel Majid Ibrahim, director of the Asayish police station in the Corniche neighbourhood, says 4,000 weapons have been registered in this area alone. He says the registration process is simple, requiring only that owners come in with their weapon so that its serial number can be recorded. The owner is then given a registration card.

There are no estimates of the number of weapons in people’s homes in Qamishli.

According to Abdel Majid Ibrahim, licensing has not been effective in reducing the use of firearms. He is aware of many cases of accidental killings that go unreported.

This story was produced by the Damascus Bureau, IWPR’s news platform for Syrian journalists.