Journey through a shattered country – Technologist

The imposing silhouette of Aleppo’s citadel stood out in the moonlight. Vendors selling cotton candy and grilled corn called out to well-dressed Syrian families, who strolled the promenade along the moats. From a covered terrace, the sounds of a traditional music concert, performed for a select few members of Aleppo’s elite circles, drifted out into the street. In the brightly lit cafés, the scent of hookahs mingled with the enchanting voice of Sabah Fakhri, the late Arab music legend who hailed from the city. On this summer evening, everyone was trying to forget the scars of war and the harshness of the economic crisis.

Overlooking the city, the medieval citadel was the site of a battle that raged from July 2012 to December 2016, between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who were entrenched behind the walls and in western Aleppo, and the rebels who controlled the city’s historic center and eastern districts. After two sieges and many devastating battles, the regime’s army, backed by Russian aircraft and Iran-aligned Shiite militias, finally took back control of the city.

The scars of these battles could still be seen in the shattered buildings of the ghost district next to the citadel and in the blackened ruins of the souk. Of the city’s pre-war population of some 3 million, more than 30,000 people – mainly civilians – have died and 1 million have fled, according to the NGO Violations Documentation Center in Syria. Half of all homes were destroyed or damaged, mainly in the eastern districts. A third of the historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was reduced to rubble. What remains is badly damaged. The earthquake that struck northeastern Syria and neighboring Turkey, on February 6, 2023, only added to the sad state of affairs.

The martyred city, once an ancient and prosperous center at the crossroads of the Silk Road and Syria’s economic powerhouse before the 2011 revolution, has lost much of its cultural heritage and industrial infrastructure. “It’s part of our soul, of the city’s identity that’s gone,” deplored an artist from Aleppo. “The children won’t know this history; it pains me to see my city divided and destroyed.”

Early in the morning, workers hired by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) were clearing away rubble at the entrance to the souk. The vast covered market, once home to thousands of shops and dozens of centuries-old caravanserais, is just beginning to come back to life. Rehabilitation projects, launched in 2017 under the auspices of the Aga Khan Foundation, UNESCO and the controversial Syria Trust for Development, run by President Assad’s wife, have restored some of the market’s alleyways. The Akhmad Kadyrov Foundation, linked to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and to Moscow, has restored the 45-meter-high minaret of the Umayyad-era Great Mosque of Aleppo, which had been destroyed by bombings in 2013.

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