Return Agreement Without Guarantees: The Uncertain Future of Afrin’s Displaced People

The text of the January 30 agreement between the Syrian transitional government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stipulates “guaranteeing the return of the displaced to their areas” but it does not specify any implementation mechanism, the timeframe, or the body authorised to oversee the return.

The text also fails to include a legal definition of the concept of “return,” or whether it means allowing passage into the area, or return coupled with restoring actual possession of properties, or settling the status of existing occupancies. There is no provision for establishing specialised committees to assess damages, or a mechanism to document seized properties, or a judicial or administrative track to resolve real-estate disputes arising from military control. Likewise, the wording of the clause contains no specific time commitment and no clear security guarantees for returnees, whether in terms of preventing pursuit or arrest, or evacuating military headquarters established inside private property. In the absence of these elements, the clause “guaranteeing the return of the displaced” remains a general political promise that does not rise to the level of a measurable or accountable executive framework.

Raman, a person recently displaced from Afrin, echoed those fears. A Syria Report correspondent met Raman, who requested a pseudonym for security reasons, in the garden of a shelter centre in the middle of the city of Qamishli, known in Kurdish as Qamishlo, in front of burning firewood as he prepared food for his family. He wore a sheepskin farwa cloak to protect him from the biting cold. Raman told The Syria Report that he had been displaced for the first time in 2018 from the city of Afrin, during “Operation Olive Branch.” Because he was accused of belonging to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), he became wanted by the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), which deprived him of any possibility of returning to Afrin. He also lost most of his property, like many others from the area.

“My first loss was my house in Afrin. When the [Syrian National Army] factions entered the city, they looted everything in my house. Even the electricity strips, the doors, and the solar panels were not spared. Some people from my village told me they smashed my house and its contents,” he explained. He added that he owned three dunums of land around his house containing 250 olive trees, all of which were burned. After seizing and looting his house, Syrian National Army factions used it as a military headquarters. Today the house is empty, yet Raman cannot return to it for fear of his life.

Last month, northeastern Syria witnessed a wave of military confrontations and repeated agreements between the SDF and the transitional government’s forces, which led to a sharp contraction in the areas under SDF control, and their retreat almost entirely to areas with a Kurdish majority. This was followed by accelerating waves of displacement towards the cities of Qamishli and Kobani, which received thousands of Kurdish displaced people over a short period of time. Many of these displaced people were originally displaced from Afrin, Sere Kaniye (Ras Al-Ayn) and Tell Abyad during “Operation Olive Branch” in 2018 and “Operation Peace Spring” in 2019. This most recent displacement is the latest in a long trajectory of repeated displacement, during which many moved between the eastern Aleppo countryside, Raqqa and Tabqa, before ending up once again in Hassakeh and Qamishli.

Nisreen, speaking under a pseudonym, recently arrived in Qamishli from Tabqa. She said that her family owned 100 dunums of land planted with olive trees in the Afrin countryside, but that all the trees were uprooted, according to villagers who remained there. The family home was also completely looted when the factions entered, including the well pump that had been installed shortly before her displacement. “We did not get a chance to drink the water after installing the pump, before we lost the house and everything in it,” she said.

Nisreen added that a displaced family from Damascus still lives in her home in Afrin, without any rental arrangement and without Nisreen’s family’s consent. From her communication with that family, Nisreen discovered that the factions left nothing in the house except a spoon and a knife. She asked the family living in her home to keep the spoon and the knife so that she might be able to see some of her belongings if she ever returns. “Why has the family living in my home not returned to Damascus after the fall of Assad’s regime? All we ask is to regain our property and to return to Afrin after years filled with wounds and oppression, ” she said.

Nisreen confirmed previous reporting by The Syria Report that the SNA factions’ practices in Afrin were not limited to imposing a tax on each olive tree, but also included extorting owners, imposing fines, and seizing homes and lands belonging to forcibly displaced absentees. The article also pointed to the displacement of hundreds of Kurdish families in exchange for bringing in incoming families who lived in the homes of the absentees. The Syria Report also previously documented the confiscation of crops from lands belonging to forcibly displaced Kurds, the nullification of legal investment powers of attorney, and assaults and threats against protesters who demanded the return of their harvest.

A man in his sixties, who also preferred not to disclose his identity, told The Syria Report that he left behind in Afrin a small grocery shop, which constituted a main source of income for him and his family, in addition to 30 head of livestock and 10 gas cylinders. He said his loss was not limited to property, but also the loss of his livelihood. The man and his family first fled to the village of Basouta in the Afrin countryside and from there to the city of Raqqa, which at the time was under the control of the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES). The family feared for their lives after the Syrian National Army factions arrested their son, who had been a YPG fighter. The son remained detained for four years and three months.

Today, the family is living in a shelter centre in Qamishli, without property or a source of income. For the father of the family, returning to Afrin does not mean merely going back to a city he left by force, but regaining a shop that was closed, livestock that was lost, and a son who came out of prison after many long years. He hoped one day he would reopen the door of his shop in Afrin and  regain the minimum level of stability he has lacked since 2018.