Syrian refugees in Turkey began returning to their homes in Tal Abyad on Monday after Kurdish forces seized the border town in a major blow to the Islamic State group.
Some 200 men, women and children carrying their meagre possessions crossed back into Syria through the Turkish border post of Akcakale, a day after Kurdish fighters backed by Syrian rebels took Tal Abyad.
The fight for the town prompted some 23,000 people to flee into Turkey, but on Wednesday the first returnees said they were eager to get back home.
“I’m returning, I left my husband there. But I’m still very afraid of the bombs, how would someone not be afraid of bombs?” said Fahriye, a 40-year-old housewife.
“I’m also afraid of IS coming back,” she said.
“I’ll go and decide with my family whether we’ll stay or not.”
Mahmud, a farmer, said he too was eager to return home ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins on Thursday in Syria.
“It’s not so good here… It’s not like home,” he told AFP.
“We want to spend our holy Ramadan in our homeland. We have been looking forward to it.”
Fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian rebel forces declared full control over Tal Abyad on Tuesday, less than a week after they began an advance on the jihadist-held town.
– A key blow for IS –
Analysts said their capture of Tal Abyad, aided by US-led air strikes, was the most significant defeat for IS in Syria so far.
The town was a key conduit for foreign fighters and supplies into IS-held territory in Syria and for exports of black market oil from jihadist-held fields.
The loss cuts a key IS supply line to the jihadists’ de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.
IS will now have to rely on border crossings much further west in neighbouring Aleppo province, adding several hundred kilometres (nearly 200 miles) to their supply lines.
The group still holds the Syrian side of the Jarablus crossing in Aleppo, which is closed on the Turkish side, and it has other informal border routes, but none that rival Tal Abyad.
Inside the town on Wednesday, life was beginning to return, said Sherfan Darwish, a spokesman for the Burkan al-Furat rebel group that fought alongside the YPG.
“Military operations have finished. Tal Abyad’s civilians are returning,” he told AFP.
“The local bakery in Tal Abyad was not functioning, so yesterday we restarted operations and we’re distributing bread to the residents who are coming back.”
He said Kurdish and rebel forces had carried out sweeps of the town to remove mines and car bombs left behind by IS jihadists.
“We’re doing everything we can and providing security to the best of our abilities.”
Darwish said similar sweeps were being conducted in recently captured villages near Tal Abyad, with villagers being asked to leave while searches were done.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said YPG and rebel forces had asked residents of 10 villages in the area to leave their homes while searches were carried out.
The orders come amid accusations by some Syrian rebel groups and Turkey that Kurdish forces are seeking to “ethnically cleanse” Tal Abyad and the surrounding region of Arabs and Turkmen.
The YPG and their Arab rebel allies dismiss the allegations, and Darwish said villagers were being asked to leave for “an hour or two… just enough so we can search the villages.”
Before the Syrian conflict began in 2011, the Tal Abyad region was ethnically mixed, but Kurdish residents say they were largely expelled from the area by Arab rebel fighters in 2013.
Some Arab residents now have expressed concern about returning to their homes under Kurdish rule.
The YPG-led victory has prompted consternation in Ankara, which is concerned about rising nationalist sentiment among its own large Kurdish minority.