Syria's Kurds still waiting to go home despite govt deal

At a desolate Syrian camp, home to thousands of displaced Kurds, Ahmad Oussi appealed for help to return to his hometown, seven years after a Turkish offensive drove him out.

Residents of the Talaeh camp complain former Turkish-backed fighters are squatting in their properties in the Ras al-Ain area, around 70 kilometres (40 miles) away.

"The factions are living in our homes," Oussi, 26, complained. "We get calls from them telling us, 'You can't go back to your homes ... they're our homes now'."

Oussi is among tens of thousands of Kurds who were displaced when Turkey and allied Syrian fighters seized an Arab-majority strip of border territory, including Ras al-Ain, from Kurdish control in 2019 during the civil war.

Some of the fighters subsequently settled in the area with their families, with some reportedly still living in Ras al-Ain, a formerly ethnically-mixed region in Syria's northeast.

Oussi said the former fighters "have nowhere to go, that's why they haven't left our homes".

"I hope the Kurdish administration and the Syrian government, foremost the defence ministry, will get us out of this camp and return us to our town as soon as possible," he said.

- 'No safety' -

Some 5.5 million people remain internally displaced in Syria following the more than 13-year civil war, according to the United Nations.

Near tents at the camp outside the city of Hasakeh, some people have built small mud-brick homes as refuge from the scorching summer heat and bitter winter cold.

A woman hunched over to sweep the dirt as people sold fuel in soft-drink bottles by the roadside.

"We're always told we'll go back this week or next but it hasn't happened yet," said mother-of-seven Kubar Qader, 43, picking through second-hand clothes stall.

"There's no safety because they're still living in our homes. We're afraid of returning... we want to go back and live in our home without fear or threat," she said.

Turkey launched successive military offensives against Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria before the new Islamist authorities, who are close to Ankara, ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

Human rights groups say residents' homes and belongings were seized or looted after the 2019 offensive to capture Ras al-Ain.

The return of displaced Kurds was part of a deal reached in January between the under-pressure Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Damascus on integrating Kurdish institutions into the state.

Since then, displaced people have returned to the Kurdish-majority Afrin region in northwest Syria, the scene of a 2018 Turkish-led offensive, but Ras al-Ain residents are still waiting.

- 'Die there' -

Abdel-Karim Omar, the Kurdish authorities' representative in Damascus, said the return of the displaced to Ras al-Ain was one of the deal's "main outstanding issues requiring implementation".

Jawan Isso, from a committee representing displaced people from the area, said preliminary steps had been taken on returns, including visits and de-mining operations.

But "significant obstacles" remain, he added, citing the security situation and saying the town "is still under Turkish influence".

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, Turkish troops are mainly present in three positions in the Ras al-Ain area.

A Hasakeh province official played down the problem, telling AFP that "dozens of families have returned" to their homes in Ras al-Ain.

"Some factional members were living in properties and homes but they left immediately after the owners" approached the local authorities, he said, requesting anonymity.

Some displaced Kurds, he added, are linked to the SDF and fear "acts of revenge and accountability unless they return through the state officially".

Camp resident Fatna Abdel-Qader, 65, still dreams of Ras al-Ain.

"This tent is nothing like the home I left seven years ago," she said, wiping away tears. "I long for the land of Ras al-Ain, and it is my wish to die there."

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