Population numbers in Rojava

Are there any reliable recent sources on the numbers of civilians that remain in Rojava?

I read somewhere that about 90% of the population fled the war at the time of writing (can't locate source now)!

Its difficult to imagine the possibility of a social revolution when almost the entire social basis has run away...

Any hard facts or comments would be appreciated.

Its in the millions. While

Its in the millions. While many people have fled Syria, many internally displaced people are living in Rojava. Rojava has also taken in refugees from Iraq including Sinjar Ezidis and refugees from Mosul (Iraq's 2nd largest city). While many residents of Aleppo sought refugee in Afrin canton, some have moved to the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood that is under YPG control.

With the war, many people who were living rural, in villages or small towns have moved to the cities for security and services.

The 2014 population estimate of Rojava is 4.6 million (half of which are refugees/IDPs). (New York Times published a 4.6 million estimate)

Kurds in Syria were believed to be between 7 and 15 percent of the Syrian population as of 2011—between 2 and 2.5 million people. Assyrians/Syriacs make up around 4–5% of Syria's population, some 500–700,000 people; most of them in Al-Hasakah governate (Jazeera Canton, or Gozarto in Syriac. Jazeera Canton uses the same colors as the Gozarto flag)

Efrin is the smallest canton population wise. In Efrin, on September 7th, 2015: 126,000 voters entitled to vote in the municipal elections.

In the Jazeera canton:

head of education body Mouhamed Abdo confirmed that 86,606 students in 705 primary schools in all cities of the canton take lessons in Kurdish curriculum which was prepared by education body for 2015.

About the number of teachers who teach this curriculum he said:

The number of the teachers are 2500 and the education body have assigned 3000 teachers instead of who were expelled by the regime,and the body give the salaries of all these teachers

Teaching Kurdish curriculum in 705 school in Aljazeera canton, Kanonrojava.com, November 4, 2015

"Kurdish Language and Education Institution and Democratic Society Education Committee in the canton have trained 1625 teachers for 306 schools. 100 of these teachers have been prepared to give lessons in Arabic."

306 schools provide mother-tongue education in Efrîn Canton, ANF, October 20, 2015

If Efrin has a similar teacher-student ratio as Jazeera canton, then Efrin has 55,250 students; of which 3400 are being educated in Arabic.

Population ages 0-14 (% of total) in Syria: 36.8% (2014), 36.9% (2010)

Efrin: 55,250 students * 100 / 36.8 = 150,136 people. Which is close to the 126,000 eligible voters in September, 2015.

Jazeera: 86,606 students * 100 / 36.8 = 235,342 people. This is a very conservative estimate because 86,606 students are in primary school. Teenagers wouldn't be there. Children under 5 wouldn't be there. This is also public schools under TEVDEM's control--there are also private schools attended by middle class students, by Assyrians. Some public schools teaching Arabic only may still be under control of the Assad regime in Qamislo and Hasakah.

Before the siege by Daesh, Kobane was the second largest Canton.

In Jazeera, agricultural cooperatives/communes have 328,270 acres of crops planted, mostly barley and wheat. If an acre can supply 8 people a year of food, then Jazeera can produce enough food for 2,626,160 people. Kobane also has agriculture. Afrin is cut off from Kobane and Jazeera at present so much feed itself or get supplied via Turkey (which has closed the border) or the nothern Aleppo area controlled by the Free Syrian Army, Salafi Jihadhists or Daesh.

Ahmed Yousef, head of the Economic Body and chairman of Afrin University, claimed that the Kurdish-controlled areas' economic output, which includes agriculture, industry and oil, accounts for about 55% of Syria's gross domestic product. Jazira’s agriculture accounts for 17% of Syrian production...Yousef pointed to the production of 32 tons of laurel soap and its exportation to Syrian cities and Turkey as one of the economic successes of autonomous rule in Afrin, in addition to this is the garment industry. “Two million pairs of jeans are produced per month and exported across Syria,” he said.

Will Syria's Kurds succeed at self-sufficiency?

In Afrin:

Right now in Efrîn there are 50 soap factories, 20 olive oil factores, 250 olive processing plants, 70 factories making construction material, 400 textile workshops, 8 shoe factories, 5 factories producing nylon, 15 factories processing marble. 2 mills and 2 hotels have been built. We are the first and only place producing soap in Syria... Before the revolution there were no other work outside of a couple craft jobs. Now in Efrîn there is no unemployment with a population of over 1 million. Everyone who wants can have a job…

Efrîn Economy Minister: Rojava Challenging Norms Of Class, Gender And Power, December 22, 2014

The Syrian Democratic Forces are said to number 80,000 including 50,000 YPG. 7,000-10,000 of the YPG are YPJ.

Jazeera canton has also grown by the incorporation of more of Qamislo and more of Hasakah taken from the Assad regime, and villages and towns further south of Hasakah including Ash Shadadi. Kobane grew by the inclusion of Tel Abyad, Suluk, Ain Issa, etc... Afrin has grown by the inclusion of Tel Rifat. If the SDF succeeds in taking Manbij which under siege right now, it'll be the 3rd largest city in Rojava.

In the YPG controlled neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood in Aleppo city:

Leafing through the residential records, he told Al-Monitor, “Around 90,000 people from diverse religions and races live in Sheikh Maksoud. More than half of the residents are displaced people seeking security. Our doors are open to everyone.. “Around two months ago, the population in the neighborhood reached 120,000, but recently, many were displaced outside Aleppo to flee the blockade,” Daoud added.”

Aleppo's displaced find refuge in Kurdish regions, February, 2015

Sheikh Maqsood is sometimes called "the 4th Canton".

There are 15,000 refugees in a camp east of Al Malikiyah, many of the Ezidis from Sinjar, Nineveh, Iraq. In Afrin, the Robar/Rubari refugee camp is housing 30,000 people and is managed by Heyva Sor a Kurd (The Kurdish red cross); it was founded in September 2014.

The UN puts the current number of displaced people trapped in the region around Azaz, a city four miles from the Turkish border, at around 250,000, more than half of whom live in nine refugee camps

Human rights groups sound alarm over safe zones for Syrian refugees, April 12, 2016

The prewar population of significant cities in Rojava:
Qamislo (Jazeera canton):184,231
Hasakah (Jazeera canton):188,160
Manbij: 99,497
Al-Thawrah: 69,425
Al-Bab: 63,069
Kobane (Kobane canton): 44,821
Afrin (Afrin canton): 36,562
Azaz: 31,623
Ras al-Ayn (Jazeera canton): 29,347
Al-Malikiyah (Jazeera canton): 26,311
Tell Rifaat (Afrin Canton): 20,514
Mare; 16,904
Ash Shaddadi (Jazeera canton): 15,806
Tel Abyad (Kobane Canton): 14,825
Jarabulus: 11,570
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Syria

The prewar populatin of significant districts in Rojava:
Al-Hasakah district (Jazeera canton): 480,394
Al-Qamishli district (Jazeera Canton): 425,580
Manbij district: 408,143
Azaz district: 251,769
Al-Bab district: 201,589
Ayn al-Arab district (Kobane Canton):192,513
Al-Malikiyah district (Jazeera Canton): 191,994
Ras al-Ayn district (Jazeera Canton): 177,150
Afrin district (Afrin Canton): 172,095
Al-Thawrah: 159,840
Tel Abyad district (Kobane Canton): 129,714
Jarabulus district: 58,889

Al-Raqqa wasn't part of the original vision of Rojava, but it looks increasingly like the SDF my take it.

Al-Raqqa 220,488, Al-Raqqa District: 503,960

The HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi / Partiya Demokratîk a Gelan), a party in Turkey with very similar politics to the PYD got 6,058,489 votes in the June 2015 elections.

Quote: Afrin, with its seven

Afrin, with its seven towns and 360 villages, had a population of about 400,000 before the crisis. When clashes broke out, an estimated 300,000 Afrin residents who had earlier moved to Aleppo and other parts of Syria returned to their birthplaces. In 2013, Kurds who escaped from Raqqa, Manbij, al-Bab and Jarablus after those areas were taken over by the Islamic State (IS) also sought refuge in Afrin.

According to Huseyin Goran, the Rojava coordinator of the International Middle East Peace Research Center, about 316,000 Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen refugees have come to Afrin from Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Azaz and Raqqa. Most of them have moved in with their relatives in towns and villages. Only about 3,000 of them are living in the Ribar refugee camp, which was set up last year. Their basic needs such as food, medicines and hygiene supplies are met. In recent weeks, because of IS attacks against Azaz and Sheikh Isa, 14,000-15,000 new refugees have come, mostly Arabs. Some of these people crossed over to Turkey, some went to Idlib and the rest remain in Afrin...

Last year we had mass migration from Afrin because of this intimidation campaign; about 10,000 people left. We gathered the people and told them that this was a conspiracy. They stopped leaving. It was a mistake to evacuate Kobani in 2014 when IS came. We didn’t want to repeat it at Afrin.”

Afrin consumes 115 tons of flour daily.

Will Afrin be the next Kobani?

Thanks for the detailed reply

Thanks for the detailed reply -- plenty to chew on.

A quick question, (well, quick to ask anyway!) that I'm putting it in a new thread:

http://libcom.org/forums/middle-east/industrial-development-relations-production-self-management-rojava-20062016

From the statement 'Before the revolution there were no other work outside of a couple craft jobs', are we to infer that all the industrial plant referred to in that quote was built from scratch by the communes?

And if so, is there any information about how the process of industrial development commenced -- how did the decisions of what to build, where and how get made and executed?

And if so, why does the PYD insist that investments of international capital are necessary? They seem to be doing pretty impressively already.

Who works in these industries, how do they live, how are they trained, how are they managed, what are their working and living conditions?

What do these workers think about the revolution? How active a part do they play in the management of their work and the world outside their work, and at what level?

What do they think of their representatives? What would they say and do if, for example, the PYD decided to attempt a 'temporary' backtrack of its libertarian ideology and declare one-party rule as an 'emergency measure' for the sake of war time efficiency, or some such thing?

What do they think about the alliances with imperialist powers made by their representatives, and the proposed alliances with world capital during the period of reconstruction? If the abolition of work and money has been sidelined by their representatives, are they even aware of it as an alternative aspiration?

Is there nobody from among the all the scores of internationalists now in Rojava investigating and writing about these questions? All first-hand discussion I've seen thus far reproduces the same vague general outline, with one or two journalistic anecdotes thrown in for 'local colour'. I would think that, given the constant comparisons with Spain, at least one or two volunteers would by now have attempted to begin the sort of rigorous research conducted by Gaston Leval et al on the experiments at collectivisation and reconstruction during the revolution.