For days, Tel Rifat, as well as surrounding towns – including several IDP camps – and the still self-governing areas of the city of Afrin further west, have been besieged by the so-called SNA. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are displaced persons from Afrîn, are trapped. The Turkish-backed, equipped and controlled Islamist militia force launched its own invasion to occupy the city of Tel Rifat in the shadow of the terrorist organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's (HTS) offensive on Aleppo. The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been calling the city the first target of Turkey's next campaign in northern Syria since 2022.

The decision taken by the Afrin-Shehba People’s Council to ‘transfer civilians to safe areas’ in order to protect the population against the attacks of the occupying Turkish state and its gangs has been implemented since 2 December. Thousands of civilians reached Tabqa and Raqqa in 3 days after the work carried out by the means of the Autonomous Administration, while thousands are still stranded in Shehba.

The 50 buses that set out for Shehba and Shêrawa yesterday to evacuate the stranded civilians were blocked by the gangs of the occupying Turkish state at the entrance of the district of Ahdas.

According to reports, attempts are continuing for buses to access the region.