In Rojava real estate prices are rising in the face of displaced of Sri Kaneh/Ras Al Ain and Tall Abyad

Aso-Zana Ibrahim

Since the beginning of the operation on October 9, 2019, the Turkish aggression against Rojava, north and east of Syria, has resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the towns of Sri Kaneh / Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad and their environs to other areas, following the control of Turkey and the armed Syrian opposition factions (NSA) on their areas.

According to UNHCR reports, the number of forcibly displaced people from Sri Kaneh and Tal Abyad areas exceeds 139,000 people, most of whom went to Al-Jazeera and Kobani areas, while more than 14,000 of them took refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, according to statistics from the Kurdistan Regional Government.”.

A displaced person: I live with my relatives, I can’t rent a house
“I live with my family in the house of one of our relatives in al-Hasakah city, because our living conditions do not allow us to rent a house, While if the real estate prices as the former we would have been able to” said Muhammad Shaker, a displaced person from Sri Kaneh.

Shaker continues, saying that the prices of rental houses rose from 75 thousand to 200 thousand, “for shops rent prices rose from 50 thousand to the rate of 200 thousand Syrian pounds considering that there is exploitation in this regard.
The looting of citizens’ property makes matters worse
In an interview with Shaker about the Turkish military aggression and the fighting that took place in Sri Kaneh, he says that the Syrian armed opposition factions looted the property of his house and two shops, expressing the words “everything goes”, after the factions took control of the city of Sari Kaneh on 20 October.

The difficulty of securing homes drives IDPs to live in schools
“We have been living in an apartment for two weeks, but the owner needs it to give it to his displaced daughter as well, so we have to evacuate it in a few days,” “Golestan Saeed” (displaced from Sri Kaneh and residing in Hasakah) Said.
“We searched for a house to rent, but to no avail,” Golestan recalled.

“Houses here and if they are available, the rental rates are very expensive and we can’t afford them, especially since our homes in Sri Kane were taken and we cannot return to them, so we will have to live in a school, where the situation is very bad”.
IDP: How do we live in camps while we are in our country?

An IDP from Tel Abyad, who preferred to remain anonymous, says that since October 13 he has been living in a school in Direk / Al-Malikiyah area because he could not get a house.” I found some houses but their rent was too high and more than my ability”.

As for the situation in schools, the IDP shows that in the first period, aid was being provided well, but with time the aid began to decrease.
“No matter how bad the school is, it remains much better than the camps”.

He continued his speech: “There are pressures on us to move to Nowruz camp. I visited the camp today and found life very difficult, so I came back to Derek to find a house to rent, but the prices are too high and I couldn’t rent any of them.
“How will we live in the camps while we are in our country?

Rental prices doubled amid talk of “exploitation”
The displaced “Kawi Mohammed” says that he rents a one-room house in one of the neighborhoods of Al-Hasakah city amounting to 35 thousand Syrian pounds, pointing out that the price of such a house was about 15 thousand in the past,” describing this (exploitation).

“I searched a lot for a house to find and found a house but its rent is more expensive than the current one, and although the current cannot accommodate my family, I will spend time there, I have been looking for a week here in al-Hasakah and I have not found a job” he said.

Citizens opening their homes to the displaced
Khalil Hajo, from Derek / Malikiyah countryside, who lives in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, says he has a house in the village of Keshki, in the town of Karki Laki, He opened it to a displaced family from Sri Canet to stay there for free, as a help to them in these difficult situations, after being displaced from their area.
Real estate office: There is a small category of “opportunists” and not all leases are made through offices

On the other hand, “Abu Hozan,” the owner of a real estate office in the city of Al-Hasakah says that the region had previously received displaced people from the rest of the Syrian areas, which witnessed military action, pointing out that “rents were and still range between 25 to 35 thousand.

Abu Hozan points out that some people have opened their homes to the displaced, but at the same time there are few people who took advantage of the opportunity and controlled prices! He pointed out that not all leases are made through offices
Some are through the communes, and all real estate offices and people were asked to cooperate with displaced people from Sri Kaneh and Tal Abyad at this difficult time.
It seems that real estate prices, especially house rentals, have recently seen an increase in Al Jazeera and Kobani areas, due to the increase in demand, with the influx of large numbers of displaced people from the areas of Sri Kaneh / Ras Al Ain and Tel Abyad,
Before that, people were displaced from the Afrin area controlled by Turkey and its Syrian opposition factions since March 2018, on the one hand, and exploiting the current exceptional circumstances of the displaced people, in order to achieve material profits on the other.

Abu Hozan stresses the necessity of taking into consideration the difficult conditions of the displaced people, and granting them houses at prices that take into account the reality without exploitation.

At a time when some are exploiting the difficult conditions of the displaced, it must be noted efforts to alleviate their plight by some people, especially those living abroad, to open the doors of their homes for the displaced people to stay there free of charge was visible in different areas.

Journalistic investigation: Zana Ibrahim for Aso News Network

Image from Amudah city by Najbir Hussain