ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly half of the population of the cities and villages in the Kurdish areas of Syria (Rojava) have fled their homes since the start of the civil war over a decade ago, a study showed, noting that Arab settlers replaced the population in some cities.
The study was conducted by the European Center for Kurdish Studies with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office through the Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA), across 13 cities and 880 villages using official Syrian government data for the year 2010, the last year before the start of the war, and compared with 2023 data collected by an unnamed NGO. It showed the impact of the war on the displacement and migration of the population of those areas.
The cities selected for the study were Qamishli in northeast Syria, Kobane and Jindires in northern Syria, as well as other cities and surrounding villages.
According to the study, the population in the selected cities and villages was 1,287,161 million in 2010. However, by 2023, 549,661 people had fled, which made up around 42.7 of the population. No detailed information about the ethnicities of the people was available.
The study also noted that the collected data do not represent an overall statistics of the cities, as some cities such as Afrin were not included since the researchers could not collect data. Afrin was invaded by Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian proxies in 2018 and has ruled by them ever since.
The study also included a count of the population of 880 villages, 530 of which were Kurdish, 278 Arab, 36 Assyrian and Armenian, and 63 villages of mixed populations. There was no information about the Yazidi villages, and they were included among the Kurdish villages.
Nearly 38 percent of Kurdish, 31.9 percent of Arab, and a staggering 62.3 percent of Assyrian and Armenian villagers left their homes.
The study pointed out that larger rates of Assyrian and Armenians migrated from their places, mainly due to the threat of Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the areas, as well as the presence of “Islamist militia groups” affiliated with the Syrian rebels from 2014 to 2019.
The fleeing and migration of the residents of these areas have caused demographic change, according to the study. The migration of Kurds, and an influx of Arab population to these areas, resulted in changing the demography and making the Kurds a minority in the villages surrounding cities such as Qamishli, Jindires, Amuda, and Derik (al-Malikiyah).
In Qamishli, the population nearly halved during the decade of war. In 2010, there were 464,336 people in the city, while in 2023, that number decreased to 233,472. The population was either displaced within Syria or fled the country. The city also saw 112,178 people moving in for the first time to make it their permanent place of residence.
The population numbers in the study show that the areas have undergone a campaign of Arabization, and there are nearly no Kurdish residents left in areas near Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Afrin that was invaded by Turkey and Turkish-backed proxy groups.
In Jindires near Afrin, over 77 percent of the population left their homes in the years of war. The population of the city dropped from 13,661 to 3,061 within 13 years. Around 23,450 Arab settlers were brought into the city.
The 33 villages around Jindires experienced similar patterns, as the 19,286 population dropped to 5,822. The villages were filled with 18,553 Arab settlers.
Thousands of Kurds have been forced to flee the area since 2018 when Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies launched several military operations against Kurdish forces in Rojava.
By the time Ankara had seized control of Afrin city from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in March 2018, tens of thousands of Kurds had fled, many of them to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria.
Local and international rights groups have repeatedly accused pro-Turkey militias of committing human rights crimes against Kurdish residents of Afrin since 2018.
The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), the governing body in Rojava, said in a statement on Tuesday that Qatari and Kuwaiti organizations, along with Turkey, are participating in demographic change in Afrin by building settlements, calling for "immediate action" by humanitarian and legal agencies to form committees and investigate the situation in the Kurdish city.
In August 2023, the US Department of Treasury announced sanctions on the Sulaiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division, two pro-Turkey militia groups that operate in Afrin, and their leaders for committing “serious human rights abuses against those residing in the Afrin region.”
The governing Kurdish authority in northeastern Syria (Rojava) welcomed US sanctions and called for an international investigation into alleged crimes committed by the militias in Afrin.
Since then, Turkey has routinely bombarded areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Rojava.
Updated at 2:52 pm