Syria’s interim president has said that millions would return after President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, but many houses and other buildings were destroyed in 13 years of civil war.
Syria’s interim president has said that millions would return after President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, but many houses and other buildings were destroyed in 13 years of civil war.
Reporting from Damascus, Syria
Lubna Labaad walked among a flattened wasteland that was once her neighbors’ homes.
The only building left standing was a mosque, a years-old message scrawled on its outer wall from when rebels surrendered control of the area to the Syrian regime during the country’s brutal civil war: “Forgive us, oh martyrs.”
Now, many former residents of the Qaboun neighborhood in the capital, Damascus — like Ms. Labaad, her husband, Da’aas, and their 8-year-old son — are trying to come back. After the 13-year war ended suddenly with the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December, the frozen front lines dividing the country melted away overnight.
“We were waiting for that very moment to return,” said Ms. Labaad, 26.
Syria’s conflict forced more than 13 million people to flee, in what the United Nations called one of the largest displacement crises in the world. More than six million Syrians left the country and some seven million have been displaced inside Syria, including Ms. Labaad and her family.
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