back home in damascus to mounds of rubble and tears
Last Updated : GMT 05:17:37
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
Last Updated : GMT 05:17:37
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice

Back home in Damascus to mounds of rubble and tears

Emiratesvoice, emirates voice

Emiratesvoice, emirates voice Back home in Damascus to mounds of rubble and tears

Thousands of rebels and original inhabitants were driven out of Zabadani
Abu Dhabi - Emirates Voice

Arriving with her husband and 10-year-old daughter to check on their home for the first time in five years, Adibeh Ghosn had trouble recognising the neighbourhood. In disbelief, she walked over the mounds of rubble leading to her home. "Where are the neighbours, where are the people? What has happened here?" she cried, wiping away tears as she gazed at the horizon of collapsed buildings, houses stripped of doors and windows, and finally her own charred home.

Once a popular summer resort famed for its fruit trees and favoured by tourists from rich Gulf Arab countries, the Damascus suburb of Zabadani is now a deserted endless vista of pulverised buildings after thousands of rebels were driven out, along with the town's original inhabitants. A short drive away is Madaya, once a besieged rebel stronghold that captured international head-lines for haunting photographs of children dying of malnutrition. Like Zabadani, it has now been re-taken by Syrian troops. "Our town used to be a paradise. We lived in bliss.Why did this happen to us?" Ghosn said. Zabadani, some 45km northwest of Damascus, was retaken last month by Syrian and Iranian-backed allied forces following two years of siege, the latest in a growing list of towns and cities recaptured by President Bashar Assad's forces.

The military gains have given the Syrian leader the upper hand in the six-year-old war, creating new realities on the ground as fruitless rounds of cease-fire talks are held in Switzerland and Kazakhstan between the warring sides. The predominantly Sunni town near the border with Lebanon returned to government control on April 19, following a Qatar-and Iran-brokered deal that saw thousands of rebels along with the remaining inhabitants of both Zabadani and nearby Madaya evacuated to rebel-held northern Idlib province in return for surrender. The elaborate deal was tied to the fate of thousands of Shiite in-habitants of two towns besieged by rebels in Idlib, who were relocated to government-held territory as part of the agreement.  

It was one of the largest and most controversial population transfers in Syria's civil war, underscoring Iran's growing role as a power broker in Syria as well as suspicions that the regional Shiite powerhouse was engaged in demographic and sectarian engineering in parts of Syria key to its own interests. Driving through the fertile plains leading to Zabadani and Madaya, where fragrant cherry trees and apple orchards in full bloom lined the road, it was difficult to imagine that until recently people were dying of hunger and starvation here.

Residents told that some 50 people died of hunger in Madaya, where the population had swelled to 40,000 as many of those fleeing Zabadani had settled there. Zabadani was the first town in the Damascus countryside to fall to the Syrian rebels in early 2012 and is among the hardest hit. The town was briefly retaken by government forces a month later before the rebels seized it again. For months, airstrikes and lethal barrel bombs rained down on the town wedged between blue-green mountains.

In the summer of 2015, it came under total siege after the Syrian army cut the road to Damascus and allied Hezbollah fighters encircled it from the Lebanese side. Now, picking through the heaps of trash littering what used to be her home, Ghosn found a few family mementos that triggered more tears: a passport photograph of her son, now studying to be an architect.

Her older daughter's school certificate, a crocheted table cloth made by her mother and the broken photo frame that held her wedding picture, the photo itself missing. "Mama, who is this?" asked her youngest daughter Samar, pulling out a dusty photo from the mess. "This is your baba (father) when he was young," said Ghosn, her words bringing squeals of laughter from the girl. Samar was only three when the war started in March 2011 and was too young to remember the hardships her family endured before they fled Zabadani in early 2013 amid heavy fighting.

They stayed for a year in the nearby town of Bloudan then went on to Jaramana, a district on the edge of Damascus. The girl has no memory of the family home. "I wish I didn't come to see this. My heart aches," Ghosn murmured. The town itself looked like an earthquake zone - rows of bombed-out buildings with their top floors collapsed and storefronts shattered. The streets were strewn with metal, stones and shards of broken glass.

There was an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional sound of chirping birds or of glass crunching under foot as someone approached. In a town square, a lone government bulldozer worked at clearing the rubble. Even the crops were gone - only the trunks of fruit trees that once filled the town's outskirts remained. Opposition activists said their foliage was cut down by pro-government militiamen in an effort to tighten the siege. On a hilly street hidden from view, Hani Mikhail Ghorz worked with his older brother to clear the rubble from their home. The building had been bombed, their furniture stolen - even the doors were ripped out.

Shiite insignia on the walls indicated Hezbollah fighters had stayed there at some point. "Despite how it looks, I feel happy here. I feel at peace. I have moved five homes in the past seven years and never once felt at home," the 36-year-old Ghorz said. Zabadani is estimated to be 80 per cent destroyed and will require a massive reconstruction effort to rise up again. Hundreds of buildings appear structurally unfit for residence. There is no water or electricity. Only a few people were seen trickling back to check on their homes, most of them Christians who made up about 20 percent of the town's prewar population of 20,000.

Three miles away, Madaya is relatively intact in comparison. However, here the hunger was much worse. One resident pointed to a parked car and said its owner sold it in return for 5kg of rice. Residents chopped up their beds, cupboards, even their ceilings to use the wood to keep warm. Darwish Youssef said his family "didn't see bread" for six months. Pointing to his grandson, Bassel, he said it was a miracle he survived. "This boy was five months old and we couldn't find baby milk for him," the 64-year-old Youssef said, adding that he survived on corn flour boiled in water and a small cup of cooked rice per day for months.

Back in Zabadani, on a shattered street in the old quarter of the city, two middle-aged men sat on battered arm chairs in front of destroyed shops, the wind blowing dust their way. One clutched a white-covered book. "It is an old family album. Look, there's my wife with my daughter when she was a baby," he said, flipping through the pages. The pair had long ago left behind their homes and shops, but returned to Zabadani every day for the past week, just because they can. "We live with our memories now. It's all we have left," the man said.

Source: Khaleej Times

 

 

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

back home in damascus to mounds of rubble and tears back home in damascus to mounds of rubble and tears

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

back home in damascus to mounds of rubble and tears back home in damascus to mounds of rubble and tears

 



GMT 09:54 2018 Wednesday ,24 January

'Friendly and kind' N. Korean skaters

GMT 07:16 2018 Thursday ,18 January

Macron's tapestry gesture risks rousing

GMT 23:45 2018 Tuesday ,23 January

Europe in the pink of health, feels Bjorn

GMT 16:03 2017 Friday ,05 May

Ban on Omani foods

GMT 03:07 2017 Saturday ,30 September

Facebook helps UAE resident reunite with brother

GMT 00:05 2017 Wednesday ,15 November

Deadly heat from climate change may hit slums hardest

GMT 10:18 2016 Thursday ,27 October

Sharjah Book Fair’s Professional Programme attracts

GMT 13:56 2012 Sunday ,21 October

King Mohammed VI Gulf tour

GMT 19:28 2017 Sunday ,12 March

Carlos the Jackal faces trial again in France

GMT 05:55 2018 Tuesday ,23 January

US tax reforms send UBS profits plunging

GMT 06:01 2018 Saturday ,20 January

How to take a bullet, by 'Den of Thieves' star 50 Cent

GMT 23:50 2018 Thursday ,18 January

1.5 C climate goal 'very unlikely' but doable

GMT 08:42 2018 Wednesday ,17 January

Was preparing new version of 'Zombie'

GMT 13:06 2018 Tuesday ,16 January

The London Fashion Agency relaunches as LFA

GMT 14:17 2017 Friday ,03 February

Facing Trump trade threats, Mexico eyes new partners

GMT 10:33 2017 Thursday ,28 December

Putin files nomination for 2018 re-election bid

GMT 08:01 2017 Tuesday ,21 November

China's Tencent overtakes Facebook

GMT 10:15 2017 Tuesday ,21 November

US-Saudi warplanes hit Sanaa

GMT 07:42 2010 Wednesday ,15 September

Global regulators agree on tougher Basel III bank rules
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
 
 Emirates Voice Facebook,emirates voice facebook  Emirates Voice Twitter,emirates voice twitter Emirates Voice Rss,emirates voice rss  Emirates Voice Youtube,emirates voice youtube  Emirates Voice Youtube,emirates voice youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

emiratesvoieen emiratesvoiceen emiratesvoiceen emiratesvoiceen
emiratesvoice emiratesvoice emiratesvoice
emiratesvoice
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
emiratesvoice, Emiratesvoice, Emiratesvoice