With the militants gone, Homs’ displaced dream of return

With the militants gone, Homs’ displaced dream of return
Fri May 9, 2014 08:12:07

Wafa al-Tarshi dreams of returning to the “palace” she calls home in the Old City of Homs from which she was ejected by Syria’s brutal conflict.

Her dream could soon come true, as the third and final convoy of militants left the Old City Thursday, under a deal negotiated with the Syrian government.

Government troops moved into Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, and Wafa and other families who sought refuge in the tiny Christian hamlet of Feiruzeh could go back home.

“I had a palace. But for the last two years I have been living in this room with my family,” Wafa, 40, told AFP, as she followed the news from Homs.

The city of Homs in central Syria has been the scene of relentless fighting between terrorist groups and Syrian troops.

Wafa, her husband, their three daughters and their son were among the first residents to flee the majority Christian neighborhood of the Old City’s Hamidieh area to Feiruzeh, southeast of Homs.

“We’re watching the news on television and we can see that not one house has been spared in the fighting,” Wafa said. “But we still hope to go back and rebuild.”

She had fled the Old City in central Homs as “bullets rained down” on the neighborhood, she said.

“When the gunmen entered Homs, we thought it’ll be a matter of days only and they would leave ... but months passed. Now that they have reached an agreement, we hope to return.”

The 2011 uprising has since degenerated into a bloody civil war that has cost more than 150,000 lives and left millions of people displaced.

The fighting has ravaged Homs’ Old City, leaving it in ruins, including the Saint Mary of the Holy Belt church in Hamidieh.

In Feiruzeh, around 800 families from Homs have had to make do, with many squeezing into one-room homes often in one-story buildings, struggling to make ends meet.

Ahed al-Shami, Wafa’s husband, used to run a thriving general store back in Hamidieh that his father had founded and made popular among Homs’ residents.

Now he runs a tiny grocery shop and works hard to feed his family of six, his elderly mother and a physically handicapped brother.

“We hope for the best, for us and for others,” he said.

Samih, a former contractor who declined to give his full name, said the Homs accord was “a wise decision,” even if his house was unlikely to still be standing.

A father of four who now earns a living selling clothes, Samih said he hoped the deal would have a positive impact on the rest of Syria.

Taxi driver Abu Salem agreed.

“It’s the best news I’ve heard for the past two-and-a-half years,” he said, though he acknowledged that “going back will take time because people will have to rebuild.”

Nine-year-old Bushra was excited. For her, going back would mean finding the clothes, books and pictures she had left behind.

“And I can play with my friends again,” she beamed.

BA/BA

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