Kurds in Aleppo Begin Rebuilding Lives After Clashes

Residents of Aleppo Return Home

Residents from a Kurdish area of Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, have passed through government checkpoints to find blackened walls and burnt vehicles on streets littered with debris. They returned home on Sunday following days of deadly clashes. The fighting, which erupted on Tuesday in predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods, began after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—the main Kurdish-led force in the country—failed to make progress on plans to integrate the SDF into the national army, resulting in dozens of deaths and displacing approximately 155,000 people, according to Syrian authorities.

The battles were the most intense since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. By Sunday, the government had regained full control of both areas after agreeing to transfer SDF fighters from the districts to the autonomous Kurdish regions in the northeast of the country. The United Nations has stated that it is working to send more convoys of food, fuel, blankets, and other emergency supplies to the neighborhoods.