Back To Homs: Thousands Of Syrians Return To Scenes Of Horrendous Destruction After Surrender Of 'Capital Of The Revolution' -- Daily Mail
Thousands of people who fled Syria's 'capital of the revolution' two years ago returned today to see the apocalyptic destruction wreaked on their city.
Snapping photographs on their phones, the displaced first began wandering nervously down paths carved from rubble yesterday in the old quarters of Homs, where thousands died in the ultimately failed battle by rebels against the troops of President Bashar al-Assad.
The scene that greeted them was devastating. Whole city blocks had been pounded into an endless scene of hollowed-out buildings, covered in dust. The streets were littered with shattered concrete bricks, toppled telephone poles and charred, crumpled skeletons of cars.
More than 150,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad's regime began in March 2011, and Homs was the centre of much of the fighting, known by many as the 'capital of the revolution'.
Once a thriving city of more than a million people, President Bashar Assad's troops blockaded the neighborhoods of Homs for more than a year, pounding rebel bastions with his artillery and air force.
Finally, under a deal struck this week, the rebels surrendered in a major victory for the government.
The regime assumed control of the old quarters, while in return some 2,000 rebel fighters were granted safe passage to opposition areas north of Homs.
The final piece of the agreement fell into place yesterday afternoon as the last 300 or so rebels left Homs, and an aid convoy was allowed into two pro-government villages in northern Syria which had been besieged by the opposition.
The seizure of Homs is not only symbolic - the city is also a tactical and logistical linchpin which the government can use to launch further offensives on rebel-held territory in the north.
Even before the last rebels departed, government bulldozers were clearing paths through the heaviest rubble in Homs' battle-scarred districts yesterday.
It marked the first time that government troops have entered these neighborhoods, the last rebel bastions in the city, in more than a year.
Homs governor Talal Barazi said engineering units were combing Hamidiyeh and other parts of the old quarters in search of mines. State TV said two soldiers were killed while dismantling a bomb.
Troops reportedly discovered two field hospitals in the neighborhoods of Bab Houd and Qarabis, and network of underground tunnels linking the districts to each other and to the countryside.
In Hamadiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood before the fighting caused residents to flee, people trickled back in to check on their properties.
Imad Nanaa, 52, returned to examine his home for the first time in almost three years - and found it almost intact, compared to other houses with shattered windows and crumbling walls.
Speaking nervously and hurriedly because he wanted to leave as quickly as possible, he said he was looking forward to coming back with his family as soon as the army allowed it.
'This deal has saved us from more blood and destruction,' he said.Hundreds of men, women and children - some in pushchairs - walked through parts of the eight-mile-long old quarters, flashing victory signs and taking pictures. Some men in the first group dashed inside, passing burned-out cars and heavily damaged buildings.
People returning were required to hand over their IDs to the troops upon entering the formerly rebel-held districts. The soldiers then returned the papers as the people filed out later.
One man walked out with a guitar under his arm. A woman emerged from her home carrying a stack of photo albums.
'I have nothing left for me to remember so I brought these photos,' the woman, Fadia al-Ahmar, said. 'My house was destroyed.'
The staggering scale of destruction in the area spoke to the ferocity of the fighting.
In the Maljaa neighborhood, every building was damaged, even cars parked inside. An eight-storey building was flattened into rubble. Shop fronts were pancaked and walls of apartment blocks were blasted with holes from artillery and tank shells.
Back in Hamadiyeh, the historic St Mary Church of the Holy Belt was heavily damaged, although the thick stone walls were still standing.
There were no pews and some of the icons were disfigured, while the Syriac Orthodox church's damaged bell lay on the ground in the courtyard.
The Greek Orthodox bishop in Homs, George Abu Zakhm, said the situation there is 'catastrophic'.
He added all 11 churches in Homs' old quarter have been either heavily damaged or destroyed.
He accused the rebels of lighting a fire inside the 6th century Greek Orthodox St. Elian Church, and said icons dating back hundreds of years 'are still on the walls but they were blackened.'
Islamic extremists among Syria's rebels have desecrated churches elsewhere in Syria, but there was no immediate evidence to suggest that opposition fighters were responsible for the damage to Christian sites in central Homs.
The truth is that almost every building, not just churches, bore heavy and tragic scars from the fighting.
