As the international community marks the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime, the ongoing conflict in Syria continues to dominate regional dynamics. The Northeast of Syria (NES), comprising a mosaic of Kurds, Arabs, and Christian minorities, constitutes approximately one-third of Syria's territory and remains mired in uncertainty and volatile peace. The new rulers, who have expressed overt discontent with the situation, have repeatedly called upon the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main armed force of theAutonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), to integrate into the newly formed Syrian army, an institution that now incorporates factions that have been in conflict with the SDF for many years.
Nevertheless, the US Special Envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, has been playing a pivotal role in narrowing gaps and brokering a peace deal between both parties. This materialized in an initial agreement, signed in March 2025, which hindered escalations but failed to bring peace to the region. Barrack has repeatedly pressured SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi to move forward with implementing the March agreement. He explicitly statedthat “there is only one road … and that road leads to Damascus”.
However, despite the recent promising exchanges, the negotiation remains encumbered by significant constraints. Damascus continues to demonstrate reluctance to acknowledge any form of federalism or power-sharing. The principle of "One Syria, One Army, One Government" remains the government's core position.
This tension indicates a fundamental risk: the integration process could be reduced to a purely military merger, ignoring important social and economic factors. Tom Barrack has said that if there is no detailed political plan, an agreement will not be worth much. He further asserted the need for a realistic vision of how the SDF can be part of a united Syrian government, instead of just being broken up and put under central control. Hence, any integration without parallel investment in social services, economic reconstruction, or local governance risks reinforcing military hierarchies without addressing the fundamental grievances that precipitated the northeast's semi-autonomy.
There are three main aspects (education, health, and agriculture) of the everyday life of residents in NES, which must be prioritized in the coming exchanges between AANES/SDF and the central government. Indeed, observers have noted that while oil revenues and border control may be transferred, there is still little clarity on who will run local institutions, administer social welfare, or manage economic reconstruction in formerly semi-autonomous SDF-held areas.
Education: A System Unravelling Amid Conflict
The education system in NES serves around 900,000 students distributed across 5,000 schools, many of which remain partially non-functional; some 87 schools were destroyed, and 92 were partially damaged, according to Samira Haj Ali, co-chair of the AANES Education Board. In 2025, UNICEF reported that schooling for more than 230,000 children in NES has been interrupted due to military action and new waves of displacement. In fact, reports state that 133 schools were used as collective shelters for displaced persons, resulting in more than 68,000 children being unable to attend school. Compounding this is the infrastructure damage, as millions of classrooms all over Syria are destroyed or have become non-functional. In NES, many operating schools lack access to safe drinking water and struggle to secure electricity and heating.
The education crisis is also evident among educational staff, who face persistent challenges such as staff shortages and low pay. A significant number of qualified teachers have emigrated abroad, while those remaining struggle to meet their financial needs and seek additional work opportunities to increase their earnings. As reported in an investigative article from 2023, the average monthly salary for teachers in NES is approximately 80 USD, with severely restricted access to social protection services.
Later that year, AANES announced a 100% increase in remuneration for its public servants, inclusive of teachers. This was followed by a substantial increase in the salaries of SDF military personnel. Nevertheless, the education sector continued to receive insufficient financial support. Two years later, in 2025, revenue instability remains a serious threat. The central government has been accused of delaying the payment of teachers' salaries in AANES territories.
The governance of the education system adds an additional layer of complexity to the overall complexities experienced in NES. Approximately 10 years ago, AANES established its own educational policies, developing a divergent curriculum from that adopted by the central Ministry of Education in Damascus. The new curriculum has been portrayed as inclusive, multilingual (Arabic, Syriac, and Kurdish), and more liberal. In 2021, the relevant authorities in NES issued an executive order restricting the implementation of the curriculum adopted by the Syrian Ministry of Education in areas controlled by the Assad regime (accounting for 10% of schools in NES). This was applied to parts of Al-Hasaka and Qamishli, as well as up to 60 villages in remote rural areas collectively hosting more than 160,000 students.
The situation deteriorated following the regime change, as AANES authorities expanded their control to all public schools and compelled the representative from the Syrian Ministry of Education to vacate his/her position. In a recent development, the so-called “curriculum war” has emerged within the network of private schools overseen by various Christian churches in the region. This introduced a new dimension of complexity to the already fragile state of academic limbo, engendering a scenario in which thousands of students and their families found themselves facing an uncertain future regarding accreditation, whilst also fearing an interruption in their educational pursuits.
Health System in Ruins
Access to healthcare services for millions of Syrians residing in NES remains problematic, uncertain, and subject to logistical and political constraints. The deterioration of the health sector was not a sudden occurrence, but rather a gradual process. The AANES, in its capacity as the de facto health authority, has established local health committees in the aftermath of the defeat of the Islamic State in 2019. Their responsibilities include hospital management, coordination of local health committees, and facilitating communication between NGOs and relevant stakeholders.
However, Damascus retains de jure sovereignty, controlling national licensing, import channels, and official UN coordination pathways. This duality creates significant operational challenges, as health worker credentials issued at the local level are often not recognised at the national level. The ongoing discord between the central government and the post-Assad regime remains a persistent feature of the region's political landscape.
In her recent remarks, Barbara Hessel, the head of MSF's programmes in NES, underscored the gravity of the situation in northeast Syria, stating that it is not merely a matter of conflict but rather “the daily erosion of people’s ability to survive with dignity.” The health and sanitation sector is characterized by the intersecting dynamics of war scars, contested governance, and pervasive political tension. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that 114 health service delivery units are currently operational across Aleppo, Al-Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir-ez-Zor. More than half of these units are only partially functional, largely due to shortages of staff, electricity, and clean water.
With respect to the functionality of hospitals, it is a cause for concern that as of March 2025, only 1 in 16 public hospitals were fully operational, with a significant reliance on humanitarian donors. It’s been reported that by the end of April 2025, 68 health facilities would exhaust their funding. The health system in the northeast is currently regarded as a fragile but functional patchwork, characterised by pockets of serviceable clinics and hospitals sustained by local authorities and NGOs. These clinics and hospitals operate alongside unmet demand, gaps in basic utilities, and fragile supply chains.
Consequently, the most pressing challenge facing the health system is the scarcity of human resources, particularly in emergency obstetric, neonatal, and surgical care. Similar to much of Syria, some areas of the NES now have a lower physician density compared to pre-war levels. Recent assessments and health reviews indicate that certain regions within eastern Syria have a physician density of less than one physician per 10,000 residents.
Furthermore, the displacement of Syrians, even following the government change in December 2024, remains highly challenging. MSF reports, and other field assessments indicate that up to 90% of households in some governorates delay or avoid care due to distance, cost, or non-functional nearby clinics. This indicates that service availability does not equate to access, particularly when transport, fees, and security prevent patients from reaching functioning HSDUs, or health service delivery units. Furthermore, IDP concentrations (internally displaced persons) have been shown to exacerbate public health risks, resulting in overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and nutritional stress, thereby placing additional strain on already-constrained services. Women and children remain among the most vulnerable, due to uneven maternal and neonatal services, long and costly access to emergency obstetric care, incomplete immunization caused by cold-chain and supply bottlenecks, under-resourced nutrition programmes amid pockets of acute malnutrition, and scarce mental health support within a context of widespread trauma, all of which collectively undermine their health and survival.
Notably, the heavy dependence on international support further burdens the health system in the region. The confluence of sanctions, donor fatigue, and evolving geopolitical priorities has the potential to render HSDUs operational one month and non-operational the next, should critical supplies or fuel for generators run out.
Farming on the Brink
Syria's agricultural sector, once regarded as a vital economic pillar, is currently experiencing significant challenges in the northeast region. Farmers in Al-Hasakah, Raqqa, Deir-ez-Zor, and the surrounding areas are confronted with multiple challenges, including diminishing Euphrates flows, protracted drought, escalating costs, and institutional bottlenecks. These factors collectively pose a threat not only to the livelihoods of the farming community but also to regional food security.
A significant contributing factor to the crisis is water scarcity, particularly along the Euphrates River. In fact, this is not purely due to natural causes. The weaponization of water is well documented in the context of NES. Upstream damming in Turkey, in combination with reduced rainfall, has led to a marked diminution in inflows into Syria. Additionally, local control dynamics in NES also contribute to the water crisis. As in other sectors, governance over water resources and agricultural production is also complicated by friction between AANES, local groups backed by Turkey, and the central government in Damascus.
Local farmers have reported that water levels have diminished to such an extent that they now have to wait longer to irrigate their fields. This exacerbates the vulnerability of communities reliant on canal systems and intensifies competition for resources among farmers and local communities. As a result, an alarming decline in crop output has been reported. Severe droughts further worsen the situation, with rainfall during the 2023-2024 season registering one of the lowest levels in decades, according to AANES authorities. This has devastated rain-fed wheat and barley harvests, as reflected in the words of a farmer from the countryside of Al-Hasakah governorate: “The land has completely dried up; we planted wheat, but the soil cracked before it grew.”
The situation is further exacerbated by fuel shortages, as a significant proportion of farmers depend on diesel-powered pumps to extract water from wells. However, the escalating costs of fuel, compounded by the delayed provision of subsidies from local authorities, have rendered irrigation excessively costly. One farmer informed Syria Direct that the quantity of subsidized diesel allocated by AANES was not enough, compelling farmers to purchase additional fuel at elevated market prices.
Conclusion
A closer look at the crises unfolding across education, healthcare, and agriculture in Northeast Syria reveals a deeper structural truth: the future of the region cannot be negotiated solely through a military lens. As Damascus and the SDF navigate an uncertain integration process, prioritising a narrow, security-centred merger risks exacerbating the very inequalities and governance failures that fuelled fragmentation in the first place. The socioeconomic fabric of the northeast has been eroded by conflict, displacement, institutional rivalry, and economic collapse. The detrimental effects are visible across the region's schools, clinics, farms, and water systems. Unless these everyday realities are addressed with equal urgency, any military accommodation will offer little more than a fragile façade of stability.
Nevertheless, NES continues to host some of the most volatile elements of the ISIS legacy, with large camps such as al-Hol housing tens of thousands of relatives of ISIS fighters, thereby posing a persistent security risk and compromising stability. Concurrently, Turkey maintains its status as a significant external actor, with its security concerns, support for specific tribal forces, and firm opposition to decentralization all contributing to the complexity of Damascus's plans for a unified Syria.
In order for the integration deal to endure, it must move beyond the application of force. The core of any future governance agenda must be economic recovery, livelihoods, social protection, women's participation, and civic engagement. Otherwise, NES risks descending into a transactional, militarized client state, perpetually dependent on external aid and fragile political arrangements. Donors cannot serve as the long-term guarantors of the process, nor can Damascus govern under the centralized, zero-sum mentality that characterized the Ba'ath era. It is also incumbent upon Kurdish leaders to adopt a pragmatic and inclusive vision that recognizes the rights of Arab and other minority communities, embraces political pluralism, and builds institutions that reflect the region's diversity. Ultimately, only a comprehensive settlement – encompassing military, social, economic, and political dimensions – can ensure a stable and just future for Northeast Syria.