Selling carpets and trinkets in his ancient shop on the edge of Damascus’ old city, Ibrahim Hamzeh waits for the eviction notice to come.
Hamzeh lives just outside Bab al-Salam, one of the seven gates to the old city, and all his neighbours have received notice to leave their homes, which are set to be bulldozed to make way for an eight-lane highway.
“This will destroy a community. All our friends and family live around here but if we are relocated it will be to an area 25km outside the city,” he said.
A plan to raze swathes of the medieval suburbs, souks and workshops that huddle against old Damascus’s northern city wall will destroy the livelihoods of about 10,000 people, conservation experts and residents say. The project to widen the Malik al-Faisal road to 40 metres, with high-rise flats on either side, could go ahead as early as May.
“The government will give compensation for the owners of houses and shops but those who rent will get nothing, although they’ve rented them for decades and paid taxes. And it’s not usually the owners who work in the shops,” said Razan Zaitouneh, a rights campaigner who has co-authored a petition to save the areas.
Renters form the vast majority of those who work in the souk, she said. Owners will receive 30,000 Syrian pounds, around US$ 2,000, per metre, a rate considered undervalued for central Damascus.
UNESCO listing under threat
Furthermore, conservationists believe the road expansion will irreparably harm the fabric and character of one the world’s oldest cities and could threaten its listing as a UNESCO world heritage site. Although UNESCO regards the medieval suburbs to be an integral part of the capital’s heritage, they are vulnerable to developers because Syrian law only protects the city within the wall. UNESCO has warned Damascus governorate that razing the suburbs would endanger Damascus’s heritage site listing, a status that is a huge economic asset to the country’s tourism industry.
“Damascus is one of the few ancient cities in the world still alive, and now we want to kill it,” said a Damascene architect and conservationist who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“The working people are the culture of the city,” the architect said. “We’ll lose around 300 to 400 artisans, and when they go their traditions will finish and the social fabric will be torn beyond repair.”
 Photo: Lucy Fielder/IRIN  |
| The labyrinthine streets nestled outside the old city walls are just as ancient and worthy of conservation as those inside, say experts |
“Historic cities of the world are no longer implementing projects like this, this is 1960s thinking,” said Mouaffak Doughman, director of the old city until late last year and now a lecturer at Damascus University’s architecture faculty.
He said the governorate had started to listen to concerns, although the eviction notices suggest time is running out.
Government officials insist the planned demolition is crucial to resolve Damascus’s traffic congestion. “It’s a very important plan for the old city. It will show off the city walls and ease traffic inside the old city,” said Nazir Awad, director of antiquities for the old city of Damascus.
“We live here and we’re ready to clean up this place if they help us,” said Bassam al-Ayyoubi in his ironmongers’ in Souk al-Manakhliyeh.
“But I fear that when power and money get together there is no hope.”
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
