Not an intact street and in some, the vegetation has taken up residence between the sections of collapsed walls and the broken asphalt. But nothing discourages the first returnees from Maaret al-Noomane, a martyr town in western Syria.
Bilal Al-Rihani was wasting away far from his shop and reopened it this week with his wife and 14-year-old son, without water or electricity, to prepare his cinnamon rolls, a family specialty for 150 years: and despite the devastated environment, the tiny shop of the 45-year-old pastry chef is always full.
Each car that passes between the ruins stops, announcing itself with loud honks: its customers are, like Bilal, residents driven out by the fighting, ready to resettle to rebuild their devastated homes.
“I do much better business here than in the camp (where he was moved, Editor’s note)!”, assures the pastry chef. “This street was the most commercial and lively in the city, day and night,” he adds, pointing to the cracked artery.
Unfortunately located on the strategic axis of the M5 road which connects Aleppo, the country’s second city located in the northwest, to Damascus, the capital, Maaret al-Noomane was the subject of violent fighting in 2012 between the rebels now in power and the army of deposed President Bashar al-Assad.
Having come under the control of the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Shams in 2017, which led the coalition of rebels who took power on December 8, it was recaptured in 2020 by the Syrian army supported by the Russian air force, including the massive bombings are pushing the last residents towards the displaced persons camps in Idlib, the rebel stronghold.
The city, besieged by the Crusaders at the beginning of the second millennium, had nearly 100,000 inhabitants before the conflict. It has become a ghost town, symbol of the devastation of the country.
The authorities are not yet encouraging its former inhabitants to return there, for fear of mines and unexploded munitions hidden under the debris and rubbish. But the White Helmets, who throughout the war provided civil security in the rebel regions, are at work.
They are preparing to take four bodies in body bags aboard their ambulance: “Army soldiers killed by Assad’s people,” says one of them. Settling scores between losers? He says no more.
The conflict in Syria, sparked in 2011 by the brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, has left more than half a million dead and displaced millions.
At the next intersection, another team on board a bulldozer removes the rockfalls to clear the road.
“This neighborhood has been cleaned and we are here to protect people and their property,” says police officer Jihad Shahin, 50, who assures that “activity is returning to the city.”
“We will rebuild better than before,” he promises.
But Kifah Jaafer, local head of the “Directorate of Liberated Zones”, installed in a building dating from the French mandate in Syria, is asking for time.
“There is no school, none of the basic services. For the moment, we are trying to organize ourselves to help people as best we can. But it will take effort and a lot of help, the city lacks resources. All.”
Kifah Jaafer is used to it, he managed one of the displaced people camps in Idlib before returning to take care of his city, collecting requests and needs.
At the other end of the city, Ihab al-Sayid and his brothers pay little attention to the shortages and shortages, evacuating the collapsed roof of their house with large shovels.
Ihab al-Sayid, 30, was seriously injured in a Russian bombing in 2017 and underwent several brain operations to regain his mobility, he explains as he prepares coffee on a stove on the sidewalk, his son four years by his side.
“The people here are simple people, all we need is security. We came back five days ago to repair and live again here,” he assures as a bitter cold falls with the sun.
“We got rid of Assad, that gives us courage,” he explains.
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