Famed Old City left ‘unrecognisable’
aleppo — Once renowned for its bustling souqs, grand citadel and historic gates, Aleppo’s Old City has been rendered virtually unrecognisable by some of the worst violence of Syria’s war.
For centuries, Aleppo was Syria’s economic and cultural powerhouse, attracting tourists from around the world to its celebrated heritage sites.
But now, only gaunt stray cats roam the rubble-strewn alleyways of its Old City, a Unesco World Heritage site, after years of savage conflict.
In the famed Al Hatab Square, recently recaptured by the Syrian army, lawyer and Aleppian historian Alaa Al Sayyed could scarcely believe his eyes.
Al Hatab was one of the oldest squares in the city, but it now lay dotted with sand barricades and the charred remnants of overturned buses.
“I couldn’t even recognise it because it was so severely damaged. I told myself, this can’t be Al Hatab square,” he told.
The Old City became one of Aleppo’s bloodiest front lines after rebel groups overran the eastern half of the city in mid-2012, a year after the conflict began with antigovernment protests.
For four years, it was caught between opposition factions in the east and government forces in the west.
Fighting destroyed the 11th century minaret of Aleppo’s famed Ummayad mosque and heavily damaged the old Crusader citadel.
Faced with a blistering offensive by forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad, opposition factions withdrew from the Old City on December 7 in a highly symbolic retreat.
Aleppo’s covered market — the largest in the world — served for centuries as a gathering place for artisans and traders.
They came from across the globe to its 4,000 shops and 40 caravanserais, roadside inns for travellers.
But now the market’s walls are scarred by years of gunfire, rockets and mortar rounds — attacks that Sayyed called “unjustifiable” because of the area’s historical value.
The market was “the economic heart of Aleppo and an irreplaceable piece of heritage”, he told.
Attacking it “was a decisive blow against Aleppo’s economy, because thousands of Aleppian families, whether rich for poor, relied on the souk for their livelihoods.”
Abu Ahmad, 50, once owned several shops in the old market where he sold vibrant fabrics that he produced elsewhere in the city.
Forced to leave his storefronts behind as fighting there intensified, he opened a kiosk selling coffee and other hot drinks in the government-held Aleppo district of Furqan.— The Russian Defence Ministry says Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo have broken the latest ceasefire deal. The ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the rebels ‘resumed the hostilities’ at dawn, trying to break through Syrian government positions to the north-west.