Syria: Aleppo's Kurds fear displacement as thousands flee rebels in Tel Rifaat
The dramatic rebel takeover of Aleppo and its countryside has sent tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds fleeing east and raised fears the community could be permanently displaced from the city.
More than 100,000 Kurds live in the Aleppo neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, with the towns of Tel Rifaat, Tel Aran and Tel Hassel also housing significant Kurdish communities.
Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Tel Rifaat have for years been secured by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and operated as Kurdish enclaves.
However, on Sunday, rebel factions belonging to the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) captured Tel Rifaat, prompting people to leave for SDF-held areas of the northwest.
The SDF is backed by the United States and dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is linked to the PKK, an armed group that has been waging a decades-long war against Turkey.
Many of the Kurds taken to the east on Monday night were originally displaced in 2018 from Afrin, 30km to the west, when that town was seized by the SNA, and had been living in informal camps in Tel Rifaat ever since.
Tel Rifaat itself had been captured by Kurdish fighters from Syrian rebels in 2016, prompting many Syrian Arabs in the area to flee to Turkish-controlled Azaz. Now, these displaced Arabs hope to return to their homes.
Sinam Mohamad, the representative of the SDF’s political wing in the United States, is a Kurd from Afrin.
She told Middle East Eye that the situation was very dangerous for the people displaced from Afrin living in Tel Rifaat, who she said had been attacked by the SNA.
“In order to protect the displaced people of Afrin, we moved them to northeast Syria, to Tabqa,” she said.
On Monday, 120,000 Kurds, many originally from Afrin, were moved in convoy to Tabqa and placed in temporary shelters.
“Massive displacement has not occurred in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, at least for now,” Sophie Stone, a researcher from Syria-based Rojava Information Centre (RIC), told MEE.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the rebel offensive on Aleppo, has called on Kurdish fighters to leave the city but asked Kurdish civilians to stay.
It condemned the “barbaric practices” the Islamic State group carried out on Kurds, promising to “guarantee their security in their original areas in the city of Aleppo, which will be stronger with its diversity”.
Yet, according to local news reports, HTS has surrounded and besieged Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, with residents facing dwindling food supplies and a lack of services.
“There is no water, electricity or internet,” Mohamad said, confirming that HTS had offered a deal to the Kurdish forces. “They said you can leave if you can, but all the people who have homes there, their businesses, their work, I don’t know if they can move,” she said.
Mohamad suggested there may be concerns among Kurds who worked with local Kurdish authorities, as people in Afrin associated with the YPG’s political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), were arrested after the rebels took the town in 2018.
“There’s a fear of that happening again. For now, the people are staying in their places, and the area is protected,” she said.
“We don't know what will happen and they are under threat. Some people may be preparing to move, because they are afraid of the Syrian National Army and HTS.”
SNA fighters have been accused of grave human rights abuses against Kurds in Afrin and other areas of the Aleppo countryside in recent years.
A Human Rights Watch report released in February said the Turkish-backed forces have “conducted arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, abductions, and torture”.
“Kurdish women detainees reported being subjected to sexual violence, including rape,” the report said.
Akram Hamo, the Belgian-based chairman of Hevi, a Syrian Kurdish cultural organisation, has family members in Aleppo. He told MEE that people who worked with the PYD are unlikely to stay in the city.
“However, not all Kurds are connected to the PYD, despite what the jihadist rebels claim,” he said.
“The same thing happened in Afrin: people were told at first to stay and that they wouldn’t be harmed, that only PYD members were being targeted. But in practice, individuals were arrested, tortured, and displaced.”
Bassam Alahmad, head of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a group that documents human rights abuses, is skeptical that HTS’ assurances and inclusive language will be carried out in practice.
“I don’t believe the future holds anything positive for the diversity of this region under HTS. They will try to impose their rule on everyone,” he said, stressing that Bashar al-Assad’s government isn’t necessarily better.
“It’s important to emphasise that neither the project of the regime nor HTS offers protection, democracy or a positive future for minorities or all Syrians."
'There is a real risk that the long-running Kurdish presence in Aleppo could disappear'
- Nicholas Heras, New Lines Institute
Nicholas Heras, an analyst at the US-based New Lines Institute think tank, described Aleppo’s Kurdish community as being at an “inflection point”.
According to Heras, many Turkey-backed rebels see Kurds and the YPG as indistinguishable, and so the group’s continued presence in the city is a “nonstarter”.
“The YPG is rapidly facing the decision point to either stand its ground in Aleppo, and fight and potentially be wiped out, or to withdraw to US-protected areas in northeast Syria,” he told MEE.
“There is a real risk that the long-running Kurdish presence in Aleppo could disappear if the YPG does not play a weak hand in the city as best as it can.”
SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi said on Monday his forces would continue to protect Aleppo’s Kurdish neighbouhoods.