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Residents started returning to a contested neighbourhood in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on Sunday after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. First responders entered to tend to residents, clear rubble and disarm mines.
The clashes broke out on Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces have since captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-president Bashar al-Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes, and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
Kurdish fighters have fled from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood to northeastern Syria, under the control of the SDF. However, they have said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighbourhood appeared calm on Sunday.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
‘I want to go back to my home, I beg you’
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” Ahmad Shaikho said. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defence first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighbourhood until all of the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” Hoda Alnasiri said.
