On Saturday, the Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abdulrahman, said that a state of discontent is prevailing among Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries who are deployed in Libya over their deducted and delayed payments.
In press statements, the SOHR director said that the mercenaries in Libya did not receive the full salaries that Turkey promised. The payment delay is estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 US dollars per person.
He confirmed that those mercenaries’ commanders deduct about 300 dollars from the monthly salaries of each fighter in the North African country before transferring the salary to the mercenaries’ families in Syria.
He stated that mercenaries demanded the Turks to give them money directly, instead of delivering salaries to their commanders, noting that one of the prominent reasons behind delaying the Turkish-backed fighters’ salaries is the fact that the commanders speculate with the money in the Stock Exchange.
A few days ago, SOHR sources reported that the issue of the Ankara-backed Syrian mercenaries came to the fore again, especially since the Turkish government took no action on this issue for a while, as the return of fighters from Libya to Syria has been suspended for 43 days, specifically since mid-November, amid reports of expected return of new batches of fighters in early 2021.
However, no information were reported on the reasons behind keeping these mercenaries in Libya.
It is worth noting that the number of recruits who arrived in Libya approximated 18,000 Syrian mercenaries, including 350 children under the age of 18. 10,750 mercenaries have already been returned to Syria after completing the duration of their contracts and receiving their financial dues. The number of Jihadists who were transported to Libya reached 10,000, including 2,500 Tunisians.
It is also worth noting that the number of fatalities among the Turkish-backed Syrian factions in Libya reached 496.