Syrian Kurds return to Afrin to celebrate Nowruz for first time

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Syrian Kurds have returned to Afrin in northern Syria to mark Nowruz for the first time since exile, joining families and neighbors in a torch-lit celebration after the government in Damascus designated the spring festival a national holiday, the Associated Press reported. For people who fled the area during the fighting that followed Turkey-backed operations in 2018, the ability to celebrate openly was tied to a political shift that also included steps toward Kurdish rights.

Abdul Rahman Omar, who fled his village in the Afrin district eight years ago as a Turkish offensive swept through the area, returned among hundreds of Kurds who had come back recently. On Friday evening, Omar joined a line dance with young men and women to music, then participated in a procession up into the hills above the village of al-Basouta, carrying torches and Kurdish flags.

During the procession, participants spelled out “raperin,” a Kurdish word meaning “uprising,” using flames. Omar described the return as bittersweet, saying he missed his home after years away but that the village he came back to was not the same as before. “When a person is away from his home for eight years, of course he misses and longs for it,” Omar said, adding that returning meant seeing the atmosphere of his village again and “your memories come back.”

Omar also said he felt safer celebrating the holiday in his own language and without fear of being pursued for public religious and cultural expression. “This is the first time I go to the mountain and light the flame and I’m not afraid,” he said, describing “a feeling of joy” at celebrating his holiday as a Kurd and “speaking in my own tongue without being afraid.”

AP reported that the Kurds’ return followed a deal to integrate Kurdish-led forces into Syria’s national army and to allow displaced Kurds to come back. Afrin was seized by Turkish forces and allied Syrian opposition fighters in 2018, pushing fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and thousands of Kurdish civilians out of the area, while Kurds who remained in Afrin previously complained of discrimination and human rights violations.

The earlier displacement also left many unable or unwilling to return because Arab Syrians displaced elsewhere during the civil war had moved into Kurdish homes, AP said. In the agreement described by AP, the government also agreed to facilitate returns including a convoy of 400 families that left the SDF-controlled Hassakeh province earlier this month.

AP said interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree during ceasefire negotiations with the SDF in January that strengthened Kurdish rights. The decree made Kurdish an official language alongside Arabic, adopted Nowruz as a national holiday, and restored citizenship for tens of thousands of Kurds in northeastern Hassakeh province after they were stripped of it during the 1962 census.

For Angelia Hajima, who joined the group processing into the hills, AP reported, the return was linked to Kurdish political mediation. Hajima credited Masoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in neighboring Iraq, with brokering the SDF-Damascus deal that led to the return of displaced people, and she said, “I hope that everyone can go back to their homeland now.”

AP reported that while Friday night’s festivities went forward peacefully, tensions flared on Saturday after images circulated on social media of a man taking down the Syrian flag during Nowruz events in Kobani, a Kurdish town in the northeast that had been under siege during January fighting. The report said that in some areas of Afrin, mobs descended on Kurdish areas and vandalized cars and shops.

In response, Afrin’s security directorate announced a curfew starting at 8 p.m., and AP said there were no immediate reports of casualties. In the SDF-controlled city of Qamishli, residents attacked a post of the Damascus-affiliated Internal Security force and vandalized vehicles, while the Internal Security force in Aleppo said in a statement that it was seeking to identify the person who tore down the flag and would take “necessary measures” against him “within the legal framework.”

The report also included a statement from Sipan Hamo, an SDF commander recently appointed deputy minister of defense as part of the integration deal. In a post on X, Hamo urged calm, saying that “Those who lowered the Syrian flag in Kobani and those who insult the Kurdish people and their symbols share the same mentality that aims to create division and discord.”