Kurdish families slowly make their way back to Afrin
People are making their way back home after the Turkish Armed Forces cleared Syria's Afrin from the YPG. However, life as it was before the YPG invasion still seems far out of reach for the families.
Families have started to return home to Afrin city after it was liberated by the Turkish Armed Forces and the Turkey-backed FSA.
Four displaced Kurdish families returned home to Syria's Afrin, hoping for a fresh start. They were welcomed when they arrived at their hometown, the village of Omaria, but then despair prevailed.
Afrin was until recently the focus of Turkey's bid to push out the YPG, which Ankara sees as the Syrian affiliate of the PKK. The US, Europe and Turkey have designated the PKK as a terror group. The area was cleared last weekend.
"We were in the village and the YPG was attacking Turkish soldiers from inside this village because they wanted to use us as shields," Samira Ibrahim, one of the residents of Omaria, says. "They were attacking the village from the outside and then coming back to hide in it."
Other inhabitants of the village say the YPG tried to take their children by force to fight against the Turkish Armed Forces.
Abdul Hanaan Mohammed and his family fled the town of Afrin before their children could be taken away.
But Farida Jamo was not so fortunate. Her son Mustafa was taken at gunpoint by the YPG and forced to fight. "The YPG took my son ... they put him on the frontline and later they told us he's dead. I told them just bring his clothes or something from him, but they didn't."
The village struggles with scars from conflict. And while the YPG has been pushed out, other dangers remain.
TRT World's Caitlin McGee has more on the story.
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