ALEPPO, Syria — Many of Afrin’s displaced families are returning to their homes. But it's said they must take rough roads to avoid attacks by members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that, according to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), are shooting at everyone they see trying to return.

The YPG, however, accuses the FSA and Turkey of trying to achieve demographic change in the northern Aleppo city by forcing out the Kurds and other original residents.

Afrin has always been a Kurdish-dominated area, as the YPG controlled it before the FSA and Turkey took over March 18 — after which Arabs and Turkmens started pouring in, though they never outnumbered the Kurds there. However, it seems a demographic change indeed occurred when waves of displaced families from eastern Ghouta settled there.

Lt. Col. Zuhair Estanbouli is commander of the FSA-affiliated Mohammad al-Fateh Brigade, made up of Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen members. He told Al-Monitor, “A large group of our members are handling the return of Afrin’s displaced families. Some members are deployed in the area located between us and the areas controlled by the YPG near the villages of Tunb and Kumar. There, we receive families that usually come on foot and we transport them in vehicles we have allocated to bring them back to their homes in Afrin.”