‘Afrin belongs to its people’: More Kurds return to Afrin, while others wait for guarantees

AFRIN — At the start of April, Amina Ali finally went home. The 58-year-old and her husband returned to al-Maabatli, their town in Afrin, a Kurdish-majority region of northwestern Syria, more than seven years after they fled a Turkish-backed military offensive in 2018. 

Just as displacement was more than simply moving away, Ali’s return meant more than a move back. It was “a moment filled with emotion, like a dream coming true,” she told Syria Direct via WhatsApp, sitting in the garden of her house in al-Maabatli with a neighbor. 

“I cried all the way to Afrin. I couldn’t believe we were going home. Approaching the entrance to Afrin, I felt a heavy weight lift from my chest, breathing its air after seven years,” Ali said. She opened the door of her house, “sat down in front of it and cried,” she recalled. “All the years I lived in it came back at once—I finally returned to the place that never left me for a moment.” 

As she sat, some of her neighbors gathered around, a few brought to tears themselves. Others ululated in celebration, “the sound of crying mingling with the zaghareet in a moment heavy with feeling,” she said. 

On April 1, the Damascus government signed a deal with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo that included the withdrawal of the SDF from the city’s Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods. While the return of displaced Kurds—many of whom live in the neighborhoods—to Afrin was not directly addressed, the number of people returning increased following the agreement. 

Since the Assad regime fell last December, Syria’s new authorities have repeatedly encouraged Afrin’s people to return to their homes, issuing messages of reassurance. Perhaps the most important message to date was the landmark mid-March agreement between President Ahmad al-Sharaa and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, followed by the Aleppo deal. 

Ali and her family were displaced several times before returning to al-Maabatli this month. It began on March 11, 2018, when her family fled their home as Syrian National Army (SNA) factions approached it during the Turkish-backed Operation Olive Branch against local Kurdish forces. They took refuge in Afrin city, before fleeing again to SDF-held Tal Rifaat, in the northern Aleppo countryside, where they stayed until December 1, 2024. 

Then, coinciding with opposition factions’ Operation Deterring Aggression, which ultimately toppled the Assad regime, SNA forces launched Operation Dawn of Freedom against SDF forces in Aleppo province, including Tal Rifaat. Ali’s family fled again, this time to Syria’s northeastern Raqqa province. They stayed there for three months before returning to Aleppo and finally going home to al-Maabatli. 

Since returning to her house, Ali has revived an old habit. Early each morning, she meets with her neighbors at one of their houses to sip coffee and chat, “just as we did before the displacement,” she said. 

In February, Damascus’ General Security Service entered Afrin, giving some Kurds hope that the new government would put an end to years of violations at the hands of SNA factions. But what drove returns to Afrin was the Damascus-SDF agreement in March, since it mentioned ensuring the return of all displaced people to their homes, as well as the withdrawal of most SNA factions from Afrin over the following weeks. 

Ahmad Misto, a Kurdish activist from Afrin, estimated “70 or 80 percent of SNA factions have left Afrin so far.” 

Over the first month after Assad fell, around 70,000 displaced people returned to Afrin. Continued returns have brought the percentage of Kurds in the area to around 60 or 70 percent of the population, according to Ibrahim Sheikho, head of the Afrin Human Rights Organization. Some villages have seen up to 90 percent of their residents return, while the percentage is lower in other villages, he told Syria Direct.

In the Sheran area of Afrin, the number of displaced Syrians from other parts of the country living there fell from around 18,000 families before the regime fell to around 2,400 families, Muhammad Othman Jalousi, head of the relief office at the Sheran Local Council, said. 

Khalil Bakr, the head of the Rajo subdistrict’s local council, estimated that between 550 and 600 families have now returned. 

Many Kurds returned to Afrin over the Eid al-Fitr holiday in late March to visit, planning to return once all SNA factions—as well as the displaced families occupying their homes—have left Afrin, several civilian sources told Syria Direct. 

Individual returns

Since her return, Ali has been working to rearrange her house, of which “nothing but the walls remains” after the displaced family that lived there in her absence “looted what was inside,” she said. Her husband spends his days working the land, plowing and caring for what trees remain after “60 almond trees were cut down while we were displaced,” she added. “The land needs several years to return as it was before 2018.”

Still, her family is lucky compared to other returnees. Originally, the family occupying their house would not leave without a $150 payment. But before they returned, the couple received a message from the local council saying their house was empty and they could reclaim it. 

Despite the years of hardship, and the physical damage to her house, Ali is overjoyed to be back. “A day in my house is equal to years of exile,” she said. “Everything will return, better than it was.” 

For the family of Aziz Hamdo, 28, returning to the Afrin town of Rajo was more complicated. At first, they spent several days at his cousin’s house while the displaced family living in their home “refused to leave unless they were paid $400,” he told Syria Direct. Hamdo paid the money, but when they entered the house, they too found its occupants “looted all its contents before leaving.” 

Before coming back to Afrin, Hamdo visited his mother’s home village of Sheran to assess the situation. After he left, relatives sent reassuring messages saying the conditions were suitable for return, so he decided to come back the following day. 

Hamdo grew up in Damascus, where he lived with his family before the war broke out. In 2016, his father prepared their house in Afrin, planning to move there in 2018. The SNA’s Operation Olive Branch ended that plan. Two years ago, they moved to Aleppo city, closer but still unable to return to Rajo until a few weeks ago. 

“When I arrived, I kissed the ground, fulfilling a vow I’d made,” he recalled. 

Shadia Sido, 40, had more mixed feelings as she returned to Afrin on March 20. She had hoped to return with all those displaced in a mass convoy, “not an individual return, more heartache than joy,” she said. 

Sido returned with three of her children—between the ages of 12 and 16—while her 19-year-old stayed behind in Aleppo city to prepare for this year’s final high school exams. Having sold her house in Afrin three years ago, Sido rented a residence when she returned. 

In 2018, when Sido and her children fled the Turkish-backed offensive, her husband was determined to stay in Afrin. He was later arrested by SNA factions, accused of “carrying out a bombing, and sentenced to 15 years in prison,” she said. He was imprisoned for three years before he was released after the family paid $17,000, which they raised by “selling the house and gold jewelry,” Sido said. 

Despite that, “returning is better than staying away,” she told Syria Direct. “It is enough that my children met with their father after years of separation.” Still, she is afraid whenever she catches a glimpse of armed factions in Afrin, the sight reminding her of all that befell her home in the years she was gone. 

A turning point? 

For the first time in seven years, Ali Hassan Hosni, 45, who lives in Rajo, feels that “Afrin belongs to its people,” that “we have support and strength.” On March 31, as Rajo residents gathered at the town cemetery on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, recent returnees came together with those, like Hosni, who never left. 

It was a moment of life in a place associated with death. “The gathering was a moment of collective memory that returned some of the warmth we’ve missed for years,” Hosni told Syria Direct. 

A few weeks later, Hosni’s nieces, nephews and neighbors returned to Rajo on April 23. It felt like “a turning point, a positive step,” he said. “It comforted us. People are strengthened by each other.” 

Still, “we didn’t reach the real height of happiness,” he added. “We had hoped everyone would return in a convoy, that Afrin would see an organized reception ceremony for the returnees.” 

Similarly, Ilham Rasho, from the Bulbul area of Afrin, was happy to see her mother, younger brother and other families return to her village. “When they came back, we stood straighter. Before, we couldn’t move around out of fear,” she said. 

Over the past seven years, Rasho never dared go to Afrin city, 30 kilometers south, without her husband. Since her family and neighbors began to return, she has started making the journey alone, with a renewed sense of safety. 

She hopes her other brother, who currently lives in Syria’s northeastern Qamishli city, will also come back. “There are no restrictions or risks for those returning to the area recently,” she said. 

But in Rajo, 17 kilometers from Bulbul, the situation is different. “Not much has changed,” Hosni said. “The [SNA’s] Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction is still present, extorting shop owners and seizing displaced people’s property.” 

Damascus’ general security forces “have not been able to control the situation yet,” he noted. There are still families in Rajo “refusing to leave the houses they live in without payment, while others vacate houses after taking the furniture and other items belonging to Afrin’s original residents.” 

Sheikho, of the Afrin Human Rights Organization, echoed that the main challenge returnees still face is an “inability to reclaim their property.” However, there have been no arrests or abductions, “and if there are any, they are few,” he said. 

Despite positive indicators, Fadel Muhammad, a journalist from Afrin who lives in Aleppo city, has ruled out returning home for now, aside from “short visits.” Most displaced Afrin residents in Aleppo are doing the same, he said, until they can “sort out their affairs, inspect their properties, reclaim them and confirm ownership,” he told Syria Direct. 

Muhammad has other reasons for staying away. “There is no official government announcement encouraging people to return, with guarantees they will not be harmed,” he said. He also pointed to “the security situation and the presence of military factions,” alongside “targeting, arrests, extortion” and poor “living conditions, unemployment and a lack of job opportunities.” Afrin’s olive groves, a key part of the local economy, have faced “indiscriminate cutting and logging” in past years, he added. 

Education, and the curricula used in Afrin schools, is another major challenge for those who plan to return, Muhammad added. “Their children have attended [Autonomous Administration] AANES schools for years, and learned different curricula than what is currently available in Afrin or new Syrian government areas,” he explained.

This past Eid, Muhammad returned to Afrin for the first time in seven years, for a “cursory visit of only two hours.” He found the road “open from Aleppo to Afrin, with no security checkpoints,” and many new faces once he arrived.

Anticipating a mass return

During discussions and meetings leading up to the April 1 SDF-Damascus agreement in Aleppo, Afrin was a key concern, said Nuri Sheikho, a member of the committee negotiating with Damascus and co-chair of the General Council in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh.

The focus was on a mechanism to enable Afrin residents to return home in a way that “guarantees them security, stability and a dignified life free from fear and threats,” Sheikho told Syria Direct. The negotiating committee agreed with Damascus to form a committee on behalf of Afrin residents, made up of between five and seven men and women, with Damascus forming a corresponding committee to jointly address residents’ return and protection. 

The parties also agreed that Afrin’s administration—from councils and municipalities to the general security forces—be made up of locals, Sheikho said. “Afrin’s people are those most entitled to manage their security and administrative affairs,” he added.

Large-scale return requires providing safety, stopping violations and ending insecurity, arrests, extortion and humiliation, Sheikho said. “We cannot send people to an area where they don’t feel safe,” he added. “Return must be dignified, preserving human dignity and rights.” For that to be possible, “armed factions must be removed from Afrin, and the displaced people living in the homes of Afrin’s residents must return to their own areas.” 

Sheikho said work was underway to form the committees and define their tasks, paving the way for a safe, collective return of Afrin’s displaced residents. “We affirm that the population’s return will not be delayed, and that meetings and negotiations continue to achieve tangible results on the ground as soon as possible,” he said.

Until then, Afrin’s displaced—especially those with ties to the AANES or the SDF—continue to wait for a decision to be made regarding a collective return, expected to be scheduled and overseen by the AANES. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.