SURUC, SANLIURFA, Turkey
Thousands of people forced to flee from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, are continuing to return home, amid worries over what they will find following four months of severe fighting.
Syrian Kurds regained Kobani – close to Turkey’s southern border – in late Jan. after months of fierce fighting which swept out almost all of the area’s population.
Almost daily, the U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi Kurdish forces and Free Syrian Army rebels fought extremist insurgents in the war-torn town.
Some 200,000 Kobani residents rapidly fled to Turkey's neighboring town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province in one week in early October.
So far, more than 10,000 people have left Turkey from where they took shelter. On Wednesday, a group of 1,500 Kobani residents passed through Turkey’s Mursitpinar border gate, that links Kobani and Suruc, which lay on the frontier.
Turkey's emergency body, AFAD, established a camp for 35,000 people, where the Syrian refugees could shelter and find food.
Governor of Suruc, Abdullah Ciftci, told The Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that more than 10,000 refugees live in the camp near the town.
Mustapha Beki, a Kobani resident who left his home less than six months ago, settling in Halfeti town, is one of the thousands going back.
"We know that we have nothing left in there as our house was destroyed in the six months that we have been here," Beki said, before passing through the Mursitpinar gate.
"We quit overburdening people here and are going back to our homeland," he added.
Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters, mainly from People's Protection Unit, or YPG, reclaimed more than 200 villages near Kobani and surrounding area from Daesh in northern Syria, according to the watchdog, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group.
Those returning from the other side faced a devastating scene in the place where once they called home. Khalid Bozan told AA in Kobani that they need urgent aid for the town.
"They took everything. Our two-story house is demolished, our car and stuff are stolen," Bozan said, who went back with his wife and nine children in early Feb.
"The only door of Kobani that opens to the world is Turkey. There is no medicine, doctor or food. We want aid immediately," the 59-year-old added.
