Three days after the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell, Mohammed al-Kadi caught a ride from Idlib to the capital of Syria to see his family and their destroyed home. It was a trip he hadn’t been able to make for seven years.
The 54-year-old former factory owner, who was forcibly displaced to Idlib due to anti-government activism, went straight to visit his mother, wife, and children, who have been living in a rented house near their hometown of Qaboun, in eastern Damascus.
Then he headed for Qaboun itself. He knew his home and factory – which made shelving for malls and supermarkets – were gone, lost to Syria’s more than 13-year-war. Some parts of Qaboun, an early centre of anti-government rebellion, were razed to the ground in the fighting. But he still wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
Standing amid the rubble with his brother-in-law and a friend, al-Kadi said he couldn’t believe his eyes. “I don’t know where my house is,” he said, although he thought he might have identified one of its walls. “The place is totally destroyed.”
Al-Kadi is one of the more than 7 million people who are currently internally displaced in Syria. Many fled violence or military conscription. Others – like al-Kadi – were evacuated to the rebel-held northwest, following punishing sieges by the government and eventual deals that let residents and fighters go to Idlib.
In the days since al-Assad fell on 8 December, following a rapid advance from Idlib to Damascus by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), many displaced people and refugees – more than 5 million refugees live in Syria’s neighbouring countries – have gone back to their homes, or crossed the country’s borders into Syria.
But as people find shells of homes and entire neighbourhoods in ruins, it’s not clear how long they will stay, or who will help them rebuild.
Faced with the stark reality of what Qaboun looks like today, al-Kadi said that people like him “are still processing what happened in the days since the regime fell. We are still figuring out our options.”
‘People are still in shock’
There is no one number that captures how many homes, hospitals, and infrastructure have been wrecked over the course of Syria’s war. One UN estimate says that 328,000 homes were completely destroyed. Many more dwellings are likely so severely damaged that they are uninhabitable. Parts of Damascus like Eastern Ghouta, Qaboun, and the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp were hit particularly hard, and some rebel-held neighbourhoods were eventually leveled by al-Assad’s government, sometimes under the guise of mine-clearance or redevelopment.
A commonly cited figure puts the cost of reconstruction in Syria at $400 billion. Before al-Assad’s ouster, international donors were unwilling to fund reconstruction projects both in the parts of the country he controlled as well as the HTS-controlled northwest.
HTS is designated a terrorist group by the United Nations, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others. It has now appointed its own interim prime minister and called for sanctions to be lifted, and the international community is showing an increased willingness to engage with the group. UK diplomats have visited Damascus, and countries like Türkiye and Qatar are opening embassies. But change on this front takes time, which means shifts in donor policy for reconstruction funding likely will as well.
Yarmouk, the once vibrant Palestinian refugee camp and suburb in south Damascus that was home to more than a million people before the war, is a reminder that reconstruction is about much more than concrete. It’s about infrastructure, too.
“I’ve been watching the people come back over the past few days. Most of them are checking on their homes and then leaving again.”
As the location of fierce battles, a brutal siege, and control of the so-called Islamic State for a time, most civilians had fled or been evacuated by the time al-Assad’s forces took control of the area in 2018.
Since then, the government has granted some families permission to return to Yarmouk. But returnees have found a severe lack of basic services and infrastructure: There is barely any electricity and running water, and extremely limited access to schooling or healthcare.
Dr Khaldoun al-Mallah’s parents returned to Yarmouk just three weeks before al-Assad fell, having spent years displaced around Damascus. The walls of their house were still standing, so they did the best they could to make it habitable, with new windows and doors.
Al-Mallah, a 41-year-old urologist who was one of the last doctors remaining in Yarmouk until he was forced to leave in 2018, made the drive from Idlib this week to see his parents, and the camp, with mixed feelings.
“Approaching Damascus, seeing the signs that said ‘Damascus 110 kilometres,’ ‘Damascus 110 kilometres,’ my heart started pounding,” he told The New Humanitarian by phone. Despite having lived through so much in the camp, he still found the state of Yarmouk hard to believe.
“People were walking around the streets, still in shock,” he said. Then he saw his parents’ house. “I saw how miserably they are living.”
With his own home in Yarmouk destroyed, al-Mallah is staying with his parents for now. But he isn’t sure for how long.
Others are staying put. Mohammed Said Mawed returned to Yarmouk around a year ago, and opened a paint shop on the camp’s main street. His customers are other people who are trying to fix up their homes.
“I’ve been watching the people come back over the past few days,” he told The New Humanitarian. “Most of them are checking on their homes and then leaving again.”
Public services are extremely poor, Mawed said, and he estimates that redoing a house that isn’t completely destroyed costs at least 50 million Syrian pounds (around $4,000), a price that is out of reach for most Syrians given the fact that an estimated 90% live under the poverty line.
Still, he said, the fall of al-Assad means there is no longer a government checkpoint at the camp’s entrance. “We are relieved,” he said. “But at the same time we still can’t believe what has happened. For the most part, people are still waiting to return for good. We need services restored if displaced people are going to come back here.”
Unanswered questions
Despite the images of people joyously crossing Syria’s borders after al-Assad’s ouster, in addition to some countries pausing the asylum requests of Syrian refugees, questions remain about whether it is feasible – or safe – for most people to return.
Muzna al-Zhouri, a Syrian journalist and refugee rights activist in her 30s who lives in Lebanon along with an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees, said she would love to go back to her hometown of Qusayr, in rural homes.
But, she asks, “with no house standing, no electricity, and no services, how can I do that?”
Al-Zhouri says that many refugees she’s spoken with in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley feel similarly, especially given the fact that Lebanese politicians have been amping up the pressure on Syrians to return for years. “People around me are impatient to go back, but most of them don’t have homes in Syria anymore. With winter coming, and with kids in Lebanese schools, that makes it harder.” Plus, she adds, many families can’t afford transportation from Lebanon to Syria.
“We are paralysed. We are happy, but at the same time we are asking how did all this happen the war and the regime’s quick fall? After everything we have lost?”
Another obstacle to returning, even temporarily, are concerns that Lebanese officials may not allow Syrian refugees to re-enter Lebanon once they have left. That uncertainty means she feels both hope and fear in a historic moment for Syria.
“We are paralysed. We are happy, but at the same time we are asking how did all this happen [the war and the regime’s quick fall]? After everything we have lost?”
“I know it’s a long road ahead,” she added. “We all need to work together, but we are also all hoping that local and international aid organisations will help people come back to their country.”
Lost documents and occupied homes
For years there has been debate about whether or not it is truly safe for Syrians to go back to the country, given the fact that the war itself was sometimes stalled but returnees and deportees often faced government arrest and forced conscription.
That threat is now gone. Rula Amin, senior spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, told The New Humanitarian that according to numbers it had gathered from officials in neighbouring countries, around 19,400 Syrians had gone back since 8 December – the day rebels declared control of Damascus and al-Assad fled the country. That includes 10,000 people from Lebanon, 8,700 from Türkiye, and 340 from Jordan.
“Many Syrians are returning to destroyed homes, infrastructure has been badly damaged and basic services such as health and education have been severely weakened over the past 14 years,” Amin said in a WhatsApp message, adding that returnees need shelter, job opportunities, access to basic services, and many will need civil documentation that has been lost or destroyed over the course of the war.
Asked if it is safe for displaced people and refugees to return, Amin said that “the situation inside Syria is still unfolding”. Many Syrians, she said, are “considering how safe it is, and if this is the right time for them to return or not, and how far their rights will be respected, before they can make an informed voluntary decision to return home.”
Ahmad Taha, who works on housing, land, and property rights at The Day After (TDA), a Syrian NGO that supports democratic transition in Syria, points to some of the same issues as Amin: “Alongside the challenges of houses that were destroyed and looted by regime forces, damaged infrastructure that needs urgent intervention for rehabilitation, and poor health and education services, we are talking about property violations, and poor real-estate documentation that lasted for years,” he said by WhatsApp message. “Many houses that weren’t destroyed are now inhabited by new residents.”
The al-Assad government designated some ruined parts of Damascus for redevelopment, seizing property of displaced people or refugees. In some cases, this is likely to mean that people may find others living in their homes.
Taha said that while TDA has documented all this, it’s too early to say what that will mean for people who have lost their property rights. “We are observing the situation and how it is evolving, and planning to advocate for many legal aspects, including abrogating controversial property laws issued by the previous regime,” he added.
In the meantime, people like al-Mallah are in a limbo. He and some colleagues are talking about setting up a new medical complex in the camp, but there are too many unanswered questions to move forward right now. Like many of his friends and relatives, he hasn’t decided if and when he will go back to Yarmouk for good. “People come and spend the whole day here in Yarmouk, but then they have no place to sleep.”
Mohammed al-Kadi, who is staying with his family in Damascus, also isn’t sure what the future holds. He wants to start over in Qaboun, so his family will have their own home again.
“We want to rebuild and start building memories here, but when and how? I don’t know.” He’s hoping that a new government, foreign countries, and international organisations will help.
But he knows that will take time, and for now, he wants to play a part. “Individuals have a role to play,” he says. “We can clean up the rubble. We start clearing the way to rebuilding our homes and re-planting our lands.”
Edited by Annie Slemrod.
