Families are trying to return to their homes in Afrin, but terrorists from the PKK's Syrian wing YPG are still preventing mass civilian returns to the northern Syrian region, local sources said Saturday.
The Barzani Charity Foundation, based in Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), has delivered humanitarian assistance to families returning to Afrin.
It said in a statement that 839 families have returned, with another 1,500 expected to follow. The organization is providing medical services, basic supplies and food assistance to those coming back.
However, according to local sources, the PKK/YPG is preventing families from returning to the area and forcibly relocating them to the Tal Rifaat and Shahba regions before attempting to move them to Tabqa, Manbij and Raqqa. The terrorist group is spreading disinformation through its affiliated media outlets, claiming that the lives of those returning to Afrin are "at risk."
Families from Afrin have reportedly endured harsh living conditions in camps for the past seven years and are eager to be reunited with their hometown.
The main opposition’s Syrian National Army (SNA) has cleared Tal Rifaat and Manbij of PKK/YPG terrorists in a sweeping operation, including their largest nest west of the Euphrates River, dealing a major blow to the group’s efforts to form a terrorist corridor along Türkiye’s borders.
The operation came amid clashes between Assad regime forces and anti-regime groups reignited on Nov. 27 in rural areas west of Aleppo, a major city in northern Syria.
Over 10 days, opposition forces launched a lightning offensive, capturing key cities and then, on Sunday, the capital, Damascus. The rapid advance, supported by defecting military units, led to the collapse of the Assad regime after 13 years of civil war.
Afrin had been a major stronghold for the YPG/PKK since July 2012, when the Assad regime left the city to the terrorist group without putting up a fight. To end the terrorist group's oppression of local people, Türkiye cleared the area of PKK-affiliated terrorists in a cross-border counterterrorism operation.
Local people living in areas held by the YPG/PKK have long suffered from its atrocities, as the terrorist organization has a notorious record of human rights abuses, ranging from kidnappings, recruitment of child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Syria.
The U.S. has primarily partnered with the YPG/PKK in northern Syria in the fight against the Daesh terrorist group. Türkiye strongly opposes the PKK/YPG's presence in northern Syria, which has been a major sticking point in strained Ankara-Washington relations. The U.S. has provided military training and thousands of truckloads of weaponry to the PKK/YPG despite its NATO ally's security concerns.
