Ambulances howled down the road to Ras al-Ayn, while small trucks piled with mattresses, appliances and children hurried out.
At the hospital, about 10 minutes behind the convoy, doctors and nurses prepared to treat some of at least 35 patients who were believed to be trapped underground in a makeshift clinic in Ras al-Ayn.
The first attempt to rescue them Saturday morning had been swiftly aborted when bombs fell near their convoy.
“Today, we have evacuated the city of Ras al-Ayn from all SDF fighters,” read a SDF statement released later that night. “We don’t have any more fighters in the city.”
Even before the Turkish incursion began, the SDF said they would withdraw from some border towns and villages to allow for a buffer zone between their forces and Turkey, in a deal brokered by the United States.
In late August, they started pulling down their reinforcements and removing their weapons. The SDF may have been a U.S. ally, but Turkey also considers it a branch of a designated terrorist group that has been conducting attacks for decades.
Early last week, the U.S. suddenly announced plans to remove its troops from Syria, and Turkey began military operations. “Betrayal” was the word Kurdish military leaders used to describe the U.S. withdrawal.
Now, Turkey appears to have gained control of that original “safe zone,” and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. But Turkey has said it wants to control the Syrian side of its entire border with the Kurdish-governed northeast. This includes larger cities like Kobane and Qameshli, protected now by Syrian government forces backed by Russia.
By Monday, it was clear that the not-entirely-successful cease-fire had at least resulted in a cooling of the violence. We met Nasreen Ali, 25, a teachers’ union administrator, at a funeral for a Syrian security officer near the town of Tal Tamer. Things had been quieter over the weekend, she said, but the situation continues to be terrifying.
“The situation is miserable,” she added. “So many people are displaced, and while high-level politicians make deals, no one here knows what’s going on.”