ALEPPO RESIDENTS GO HOME BY BUS
Residents have first glimpse of their homes after direct travel link reopens
Some see their houses for first time in years after Syrian army wins back about 60% of the city’s east from rebels,
ALEPPO // For much of the past four years, taking a bus between the two sides of Syria’s divided second city, Aleppo, meant an arduous, and sometimes dangerous 10-hour road trip.
But on Saturday, the trip took just half an hour, as buses travelled directly from the government-held west to neighbourhoods in the east recently recaptured from rebels.
At least 10 buses made the trip from west to east, after the army seized 60 per cent of the former rebel stronghold.
People packed every seat and all the standing room on each vehicle for a chance to go back.
“I haven’t been to my house for almost six years,” said Hala Fares, on a bus with her husband and son.
“Our house is totally burnt, but we’re going to see my father, who is 80 years old.
“He stayed behind there, with my sisters and other relatives.” Many of the buses were adorned with pictures of president Bashar Al Assad, as well as the flags of Syria and the regime’s staunch ally Russia.
Passengers pressed their faces against the glass to catch glimpses of neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.
At times they spotted homes they recognised, the building of friends or relatives, but in other moments they exclaimed in horror at the magnitude of the destruction.
Once the country’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that has killed more than 300,000 peo- ple since it began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
In the year after rebels seized east Aleppo in 2012, residents could travel intermittently through a checkpoint in the central Bustan Al Qasr neighbourhood, although government buses stopped running.
But by 2014, even that route was closed because of persistent sniper fire, and the only way to go from one side of the city to the other was through a circuitous 10-hour trip on private buses.
That route went through territory held by the government, ISIL and rebels.
On Saturday, the green state bus company buses travelled through government-held territory, starting at the Razi bus stop in central Jamiliyeh neighbourhood and arriving 30 minutes later in the newly recaptured Masaken Hanano district.
The route was still precarious, with the road dotted with craters and lined in some areas with overturned, burntout vehicles. In Masaken Hanano, explosions could still be heard as the government pushed its offensive to recapture all of Aleppo.
Despite the bumpy journey, Mr Fares was happy to be on one of the first buses going east.
“It’s true that there are lots of potholes in the road and that makes my stomach hurt, but to me it feels like the smoothest journey ever.”
The scene at the other end was not an easy one for many families. Rubble was strewn across streets, the facades of buildings ripped away, windows gone, and interiors destroyed by flames or weather, or picked through by looters.
Umm Yayha, 55, found little left at her home after arriving with her brother and husband.
“This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Quran, so we brought that too.”
West of Aleppo, suspected Rus- sian air strikes killed at least 46 people in rebel-held Idlib province yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said most of those killed in the strikes at three locations were civilians. Twenty-six dead, including three children, were reported from the town of Kafr Nabal, and another 18 in Maaret Al Numan. The UK- based Observatory, which relies on reports from sources in Syria, determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions used.