Roughly 12,000 Syrian Kurdish families are returning to Afrin in state convoys after fleeing the 2018 Turkish-led offensive. One family reclaimed its home through an agreement; Zeina Sido found hers gutted and now lives in a displacement camp.
After Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed in December 2024, Syria’s transitional government announced it would facilitate safe returns for people displaced from Afrin in 2018. Internal security forces assisted hundreds of Kurdish families travelling from Hasakah in April and May.
Dilshad Hamdo said his family paid $300 to help a displaced family from Homs return there after several months in their home. Sido said her four-room house had been looted, gutted and turned into a sheep shelter. Unable to afford repairs, she lives in a nearby displacement camp that is filling again with Afrin residents.
