The first organized convoy of Kurdish families attempting to return to Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ain) on 10 August 2026 after nearly seven years of displacement was blocked by roadblocks, gunfire, and violence from current occupants and armed groups, rendering the legal right of return practically meaningless while their homes and properties remain seized. 

The incident exposes the gap between the March 2025 and January 2026 integration agreements between Damascus and the Kurds—which promised protected returns and institutional integration—and the reality on the ground, where Turkey-backed factions and settlers continue to control the property order created after the 2019 invasion. 

Credible integration and transitional justice require full property restitution, the dissolution of unofficial armed networks, equal accountability for all perpetrators, and Damascus demonstrating it can protect returnees and minorities before demanding the surrender of Kurdish military and administrative autonomy.

Serê Kaniyê, officially known in Arabic as Ras al-Ain, is a border city in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province, directly opposite the Turkish town of Ceylanpınar. Before 2019, it was administered by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and was home to a large Kurdish community. On Aug. 10, 2026, the first organized convoy of Kurdish families displaced from the city attempted to return after almost seven years. Instead of reaching their homes, they encountered roadblocks, gunfire and violence. The question is not whether they possess a right to return. The question is whether that right has any practical meaning when others occupy their homes and can use weapons to keep the owners out.

In October 2019, after the Trump administration withdrew U.S. forces from the border, Turkey and factions of the Syrian National Army invaded Serê Kaniyê and Girê Spî, claiming that one purpose was to create a “safe zone” for resettling one million Syrian refugees from Turkey, but the offensive instead forced almost the entire Kurdish population of Serê Kaniyê from the city and enabled the seizure of their homes and properties.

What followed was not temporary wartime disorder. Human Rights Watch documented systematic pillaging, extortion and unlawful seizure of houses, businesses and agricultural land by Turkey-backed factions in Serê Kaniyê and other occupied areas. Fighters, their relatives and families arriving from other Syrian provinces settled in properties belonging to the displaced. This created an economic and demographic order in which the continued exclusion of Kurdish owners benefited those controlling their houses, farms and shops.

The agreements signed between Damascus and the Kurds were supposed to reverse that reality. The March 10, 2025 agreement recognized the Kurds as an........

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