AKCAKALE, Turkey — Syrian refugees in this Turkish border town have been celebrating. Every day, news trickles of advances by Turkish-backed troops in carving out a safe zone in northeastern Syria and opening the way for the refugees to return home.

Syrians like Hassan Khalil, 37, one of eight brothers and several cousins who rent a cluster of houses on the edge of Akcakale and survive by working on nearby farms, are impatient to reclaim their homes.

“We have been away for five years,” he said.

Yet their excitement is tempered with anxiety.

In seizing the enclave in Syria, Turkey wrested a piece of territory along its southern border from the Kurds, who had taken control of the area amid the chaos of the war in Syria.

But Turkey’s invasion resulted in a new problem: Syrian forces — deployed by the very government that had sent refugees fleeing for safety in the first place — promptly moved back into the surrounding area, alarming many of the displaced people desperate to go home.