Seven years of exile appeared to be ending on Monday. It ended instead in violence.
The return of displaced Rojava Kurds to their northeastern hometown of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) was suspended on Monday after a first group of returnees was attacked by armed groups, prompting protests across Kurdish-majority parts of Syria. What had begun as a moment of profound hope, the first organised mass return of Kurdish internally displaced persons (IDPs) to Sari Kani since Turkey and its allied Syrian armed factions seized the town in 2019, descended within hours into a security crisis that exposed the fragility of every promise made to the Kurdish people of northeastern Syria.
The first convoy of displaced people departed on 10 August 2026 from the town of Twaina near Hasakah, carrying around 400 families from Sari Kani and its surrounding countryside. Dozens of trucks loaded with furniture and belongings waited to depart as men, women and children gathered for the journey home. Among them was Nora Khodor, 37, who said: “I’ve been waiting for this moment. It’s like a dream for a person to return to their home. I’m happy for an end to this suffering.”
That dream did not survive the day. Jawan Isso, from a committee representing displaced people from Sari Kani, confirmed that the first batch of around 2,500 people were headed home but were attacked by armed groups shortly after their arrival. Mahmud Khalil Ali, deputy head of security forces in Syria’s Hasakeh province, said several of those involved in the attacks were arrested but that return trips were temporarily suspended as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of residents.
The violence was not unexpected by those who have followed the situation closely. The main obstacle to Kurdish return has consistently been the continued presence of Turkish-backed armed factions and their families, who occupied Kurdish homes following the 2019 offensive and have refused to leave. Human rights organisations have documented the systematic seizure and looting of Kurdish properties in the aftermath of the Turkish military operation. Some fighters subsequently settled in the town with their families and some reportedly remain there to this day.
The return followed a January 2026 agreement brokered by the United States to gradually integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces into Syria’s central army, with provisions for the return of displaced Kurds to their home areas. Despite repeated promises by the Islamist-led Syrian authorities, the people of Sari Kani and Tel Abyad had continued to wait while other displaced communities returned elsewhere. Isso noted that around 100,000 people from the Ras al-Ain area had applied to return, a figure that illustrates the scale of the displacement Turkey’s 2019 offensive inflicted on the Kurdish population of the region.
The attack on returning families lays bare a pattern that has defined the Kurdish experience in northern Syria since 2019. Kurdish civilians are displaced at gunpoint, their homes seized, their belongings looted and armed factions installed in their place. When political agreements are eventually reached that include provisions for their return, those armed factions operating with the implicit backing of Turkey attacked the very families the agreement was meant to protect. The Syrian transitional government in Damascus issues arrests and suspensions. The displaced Kurds remain in camps.
The residents committee described the convoy as a significant milestone in a long struggle for a safe and sustainable return. On Monday that struggle continued. The milestone was reached and then immediately contested by the armed groups whose presence in Sari Kani represents the most direct obstacle to any durable Kurdish return.
The suspension of returns is described as temporary. For the 100,000 Kurds who applied to go home, temporary is a word that has been used before.
