At least four people were killed and three others wounded on Monday when militants close to Turkey opened fire on members of a Kurdish family celebrating Nowruz — the Persian new year — in northern Syria, according to the non-governmental Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with based in Britain.

Members of the armed group Ahrar al-Sharqiya initially abused a group of youths who had lit a fire near a house to celebrate the new year, according to the group, which relies on a wide network of sources in the field.

They then “killed four people and wounded three others, all members of the same family,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The episode was recorded in a village near the city of Indires, in the province of Aleppo, in an area controlled by armed bystanders in Turkey and which suffered a heavy blow from the devastating earthquake of February 6.

The Ahrar al-Sharqiya organization was added in 2021 to the US blacklist and is under sanctions, as it is accused of atrocities against the population during Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria in 2018, as well as the murder of Kurdish women’s rights activist Hebrin Halaf.

The areas controlled by rebels and jihadists in northern and northwestern Syria are home to more than 4 million people, more than half of whom are displaced from other parts of the country. Some of the organizations in the region are more or less supported by Turkey.

Syria’s armed conflict entered its 13th year this month; it has claimed the lives of more than half a million people, turned millions more into internally displaced persons and refugees, and caused a massive economic and humanitarian crisis.