Waning hopes: Will Damascus help Afrin’s Kurds reclaim their homes?

ERBIL — Days before the new Damascus government’s security forces entered Afrin, a Kurdish-majority Afrin area of the Aleppo countryside, “to strengthen security” on February 7, 43-year-old Rami Bahjat paid $600 to recover his home there from a displaced family that had been living in it for several years in his absence.

Bahjat returned to Rajo, a town in the Afrin countryside, on January 4. His eldest son, 13, accompanied him while his wife and three younger children stayed behind in Aleppo city’s Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood until he could arrange housing. 

Encountering a displaced family living in his home, Bahjat was surprised when they demanded “$700 to vacate” his house and shop, threatening to “take the furniture and remove the doors and windows if I didn’t pay,” he told Syria Direct. He negotiated, and “they lowered it to $600.” 

Bahjat fled his hometown in 2018, during Operation Olive Branch—a Turkish-backed military offensive by opposition Syrian National Army (SNA) factions against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). After he left, his house was seized. People displaced to the north from other parts of Syria settled in it, and he was not compensated. Bahjat’s story echoes that of many Kurds whose real estate and agricultural land in Afrin was taken when the SNA took control. 

This month, when the Syrian transitional government’s General Security Department entered Afrin, Kurdish residents welcomed what seemed to be a change, hoping that seven years of repeated SNA violations could come to an end. However, it appears “the General Security spectacle that took place in Afrin was just to convince people that it has come under the new administration,” one local notable told Syria Direct. “The reality is the opposite—the factions continue to abuse civilians.” 

Residents greet the Syrian government’s General Security Forces as they enter Afrin, a Kurdish-majority region of northwestern Aleppo province controlled by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) since 2018, 6/2/2025 (SANA)

“As I speak to you now, someone is sitting with me complaining about a displaced person who lived in his house for seven years and, before he returned [to Afrin], rented it out and fled,” the notable added, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Factions with a track record of abuses and violations remain, with some “changing the al-Amshat flag for the General Security flag,” he added. He referenced the Sultan Suleiman Shah Division, which is commonly called al-Amshat for its commander, Muhammad al-Jassim, also known as Abu Amsha. 

At first, Bahjat thought he paid the family living in his house unnecessarily. He expected such practices to end once General Security arrived in Afrin. One of his acquaintances felt encouraged to ask a displaced family to vacate his own house, only for them to demand “$1,200 to hand it over,” he said. 

In the wake of opposition military operations that toppled the Assad regime just over two months ago, displaced Afrin residents received official assurances from the new Syrian administration, and personal acquaintances, encouraging them to return. Tens of thousands did, but found it difficult to reclaim their homes—some seized by SNA commanders or fighters and others occupied by Syrians displaced from other parts of the country. 

Read more: Tens of thousands return to Afrin while fear of abuses keeps others away

‘The owner has to pay’

Afrin residents, particularly Kurds, have faced a wide range of abuses and violations over the seven years since SNA factions took control in 2018. “The whole world heard about the situation in Afrin, but we have only received reassurances and procrastination, while decisive solutions remain absent,” the Afrin notable said. “What more can we do?” 

“Afrin’s people are seeking salvation from the factions’ dominance, pinning their hopes on the entry of Syrian government representatives,” he added. Among the changes needed, he highlighted “structuring institutions, dismantling the security and economic [networks] of the factions, limiting their control over real estate and farmland and returning properties to their rightful owners.” 

He also called for the removal of “unnecessary military checkpoints” and the appointment of professional security forces “who treat civilians with respect, without discrimination or violations of their privacy.”

Despite promises made to displaced Afrin residents to encourage their return, 15 out of the 250 families who recently returned to Rajo had not managed to recover their homes as of late January, Khalil Bakr, the head of the subdistrict’s local council, told Syria Direct. Those occupying these homes are asking for payments of “between $200 and $1,000 to vacate,” he said. 

“They claim they spent money on the houses they inhabited for the past seven years: hooking up electricity, digging a well or installing windows and doors,” Bakr said. Some “bought the houses from forces affiliated with the [SNA] factions, and are demanding those sums back in exchange for leaving.” 

Afrin saw a widespread trade in the properties of displaced residents in recent years, with homes sold at cost for prices well below their true value. These properties were referred to as “vacant” or “party houses,” the latter term insinuating the properties belonged to displaced members of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the civilian counterpart of the YPG. Both military factions and civilians were involved in these sales. 

Read more: Seized properties sold ‘dirt cheap’ in Afrin

Local councils in different parts of Afrin are trying to help returnees recover their properties, including by communicating with SNA commanders. Faction members have “promised to empty the houses, but it is still just promises—we don’t know the extent to which they can be implemented,” Bakr said. 

In Afrin’s Sheran (Shera) subdistrict, around 1,000 families have returned, but more than 60 percent have not been able to reclaim their homes. As in Rajo, some are held by SNA factions, which demand a higher price. “They ask for sums between $500 and $2,500 to hand them over to their owners,” Muhammad Othman Jalousi, the head of the relief office at the Sheran Local Council, told Syria Direct. 

At the same time, some displaced families have left returnees’ homes and returned to their own communities without demanding money from the owners, Azad Othman, a member of the local council in Afrin city, said. 

In al-Maabatli subdistrict, around 100 families returned over the past two months, but the local council has no information about whether returnees paid money to recover their properties or not, local council head Nazleh Sheikh Hassan told Syria Direct. 

Commenting on that, Othman said there are “dozens of houses in Sheikh Hadid and al-Maabatli that factions or individuals refuse to return without payments of up to $1,500.”

In the case of some properties that displaced families left without demanding payment, “the owner has to pay the faction if he wants to live in his house,” Othman added. 

Aisha Abdo (a pseudonym) has been staying, with her husband and three children, at her parent’s home in Afrin’s Bulbul district since returning two months ago. She fled Afrin for Tal Rifaat in 2018, then fled again for northeastern Syria when SNA factions moved in as part of their Operation Dawn of Freedom in December 2024. Unable to find housing, she ultimately chose to return to Afrin. 

When Abdo returned, she found her house occupied by a family displaced from the East Ghouta suburbs of Damascus. They demanded $400 to leave the house, saying it was to cover “the cost of repairing the windows and doors,” she told Syria Direct. 

Any solution? 

When military factions cooperate, local councils in Afrin can help homeowners recover their properties, especially if they hold “documents proving ownership,” Othman said. If not, “lawsuits can be filed through civil or military courts,” he added. When these methods fail, returnees have little choice but to pay.

In a legal sense, “every injured party can turn to the judiciary to remove the unlawful occupant from the property and have it returned free of occupants,” Ghazwan Koronfol, a Turkey-based Syrian lawyer and head of the Free Syrian Lawyers Association. 

However, there is no independent judiciary in Afrin that “dares to do that,” Koronfol acknowledged. Unconventional solutions may be needed to escalate the issue and call the attention of the public, interim government and Turkish authorities, he added. 

One option is for “the affected residents to form a committee” tasked with communicating with the government and the governor of Hatay—the Turkish province Afrin is administratively tied to—to “ask him to take immediate measures to return the properties,” he said. Otherwise, “I do not expect solutions soon, because the de facto authorities are themselves the usurpers,” he added. 

Othman, from Afrin city’s local council, is slightly more optimistic about the role of the local judiciary. “Many cases have reached the courts, and the judge summons the residents and warns them to vacate within an agreed-upon period,” he said. However, “judicial procedures are long, and the rulings are not mandatory if the displaced person [occupying a returnee’s home] appeals to the military faction” responsible for the area. 

“We struggled a lot before we managed to convince people they needed to file complaints. Despite our efforts, very few turned to the judiciary,” Othman added. Homeowners may fear those living in their houses, and lack “confidence that the judiciary will be just when one of the parties in the case is a Kurd.” 

With the Damascus government announcing its entry into Afrin through its security apparatus, it now bears responsibility for putting an end to violations in the area and returning stolen lands and properties to their owners. “We are waiting for the new government to remove them in accordance with the law,” Jalousi said. 

Syria Direct reached out to Syria’s transitional government for a statement on restoring the rights of Afrin residents, but received no response by the time of publication. 

Bahjat did not consider filing a complaint in the Rajo court to get his house back. The process “could take several months, and the outcome was not guaranteed,” he said. With his wife and children waiting in Aleppo city, it was simply faster to pay the family living in his home. 

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