Syrian refugees in Turkey began returning to their homes in Tal Abyad today after Kurdish forces seized the border town in a major blow to the Islamic State group.
Some 400 men, women and children carrying their meagre possessions crossed back into Syria through the Turkish border post of Akcakale, a day after Kurdish fighters backed by Syrian rebels took Tal Abyad.
The fight for the town prompted some 23,000 people to flee into Turkey, and the first returnees said Wednesday they were eager to get back home.
"I'm returning. I left my husband there. But I'm still very afraid of the bombs, how would someone not be afraid of bombs?" said Fahriye, a 40-year-old housewife.
"I'm also afraid of IS coming back," she said.
"I'll go and decide with my family whether we'll stay or not."
Mahmud, a farmer, said he too was eager to return home ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Thursday.
"It's not so good here... It's not like home," he told AFP.
"We want to spend our holy Ramadan in our homeland. We have been looking forward to it."
Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian rebel forces declared full control over Tal Abyad Tuesday, less than a week after they began an advance on the jihadist-held town.
Analysts said their capture of Tal Abyad, aided by US-led air strikes, was the most significant defeat for IS in Syria so far.
The town was a key conduit for foreign fighters and supplies into IS-held territory in Syria and for exports of black market oil from jihadist-held fields.
The loss cuts a key IS supply line to the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.
IS will now have to rely on border crossings much further west in neighbouring Aleppo province, adding several hundred kilometres (nearly 200 miles) to their supply lines.
The group still holds the Syrian side of the Jarablus crossing in Aleppo, which is closed on the Turkish side, and it has other informal border routes, but none that rival Tal Abyad.
Inside the town today, life was beginning to return, said Sherfan Darwish, a spokesman for the Burkan al-Furat rebel group that fought alongside the YPG.
"Military operations have finished. Tal Abyad's civilians are returning," he told AFP.
"The local bakery in Tal Abyad was not functioning, so yesterday we restarted operations and we're distributing bread to the residents who are coming back.
