ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - According to the Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF), over 4,000 Kurds have returned home to Afrin from Shahba. However, Arabs from Latakia, Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo and other areas have settled in Kurdish homes on the Afrin border and refuse to leave.
Rawaj Haji, member of the board of directors and human resources at BCF told Rudaw on Saturday that they are welcoming displaced Kurds from Afrin who are returning from Shahba.
He explained that besides providing food, they are overseeing their return to Afrin while registering their names to offer further aid later.
‘’839 families have returned, totaling 4,100 people.’’ Rawaj Haji told Rudaw
Some of the Arabs from Latakia, Deir Ezzor, Aleppo and other areas have settled in Kurdish homes on the Afrin border. Some of them are ready to leave but some are not.
Haji clarified that ‘’There is no one in camps, and those who do not have a home of their own, are in the homes of their relatives,’’.
There are 6 districts and 366 villages along the border of Afrin, and since it was taken over by armed opposition groups, most of the residents of these areas have been displaced and are not ready to return home.
When last year's twin earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria, the BCF convoy was one of the first deliveries of aid to rebel-held northwest Syria.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) office for the displaced and refugees, told Rudaw English that the opposition militants have taken the 15,000 people to an unknown place.
Most of these people hail from the Kurdish city of Afrin which was controlled by the same militia groups and Ankara in 2018.
International organizations have recorded numerous human rights violations in Afrin since 2018.
“Kurdish residents have borne the brunt of the abuses due to their perceived ties to Kurdish-led forces that control vast swathes of northeast Syria,” the Human Rights Watch said in February, referring to areas under the control of Ankara-backed groups, including Afrin.
On Tuesday, Ahmed told Rudaw English that about 100,000 people had left Shahba for Tabqa. He said on Thursday that the number has not increased, adding that the 15,000 people stuck in the area amount to 6,000 families.
