Burned up Aleppo can be rebuilt - UN

syria

Aleppo bombing destroys properties

Aleppo bombing destroys properties

UN says Aleppo’s Old City, which was shelled, burned and shot up during years of fighting in Syria’s civil war, can be rebuilt.

“Our vision is to rebuild the Old City exactly as it was before the war, with the same stones where we can,’’ said, Mazen Samman, UNESCO’s Associate Programme Coordinator in Aleppo.

He said there are detailed plans for the Old City’s great medieval mosques, souks, bath houses and citadel from an earlier restoration that should allow exact reconstruction.

But while that may be true of the most treasured monuments, whole districts of less celebrated alleyways and traditional houses that gave the Old City its character are also now rubble.

Reviving the Old City is important for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad both as a symbol of the returning power of his state, but also because of Aleppo’s economic importance.

The fighting in Aleppo ended in December when the Syrian army drove out rebels, but they still hold swathes of the country and Assad’s government is hobbled by Western sanctions.

Now, gradual efforts are being made to revive the city, one of the oldest in the Middle East.

The UN and international cultural agencies say they are committed to preserving and restoring Syrian heritage, but it will ultimately rely on local effort.

It needs local government to ensure work fits the character of the Old City, both architecturally and in how land is divided between shops, houses and public spaces.

It depends on the Old City’s 100,000 former residents choosing to return to their homes and businesses, many of which are now piles of stones and concrete.

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It also needs the skills of Aleppo craftsmen, many of whom left the city during the war, some killed, others departing with the rebels or starting new lives as refugees abroad.

“We are thinking of making a school for craftsmen,” Samman said.

One of the craftsmen, who might help set up that school is Mustafa al-Now, a worker in the ornate, painted wood panels, windows, doors and ceilings that adorn old Aleppo houses.

His was one of three workshops, where the craft was practised in Aleppo, he said. The others are now closed and many of the skilled workers are gone.

“I have to teach a new generation,” he said.

Any sustainable restoration of the Old City would depend on drawing back its established residents and business owners.

Even where their property has not been destroyed, possessions and wealth were looted.

In spite of such losses, there was evidence in every part of the Old City visited by a government official, of people returning.

Such things have happened before.

In 2016, the 16th-century Ottoman Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka reopened, recreated from its original stones 23 years after it was blown up during the war in Bosnia.

 

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