(The Daily Star)- A number of Syrians refugees from Aleppo who live in Lebanon say they will not return home for the time being and the security situation still dictates their timetable, even after the regime retook the country’s second city. For the families that spoke to The Daily Star since the regime retook Aleppo earlier this month, it would be at least a year before they consider heading back.
The Syrian Army announced last week that it had regained control over the whole of Aleppo for the first time in years. The news came after the last batch of rebel fighters evacuated the city following an internationally brokered agreement.
“I left Aleppo in order to protect my children and preserve my dignity,” explained Mohammad, who asked not to use his real name. The 42-year-old father of six fled to Lebanon from Qaterji in eastern Aleppo in 2014.
He previously worked at a chocolate factory and said that now he has no relatives left in Aleppo; most fled to either Lebanon or Turkey.
Although Mohammad wishes to return back home, he wasn’t sure when he could take this step. He said that since he has to have to start again from scratch, it would be difficult. He also noted that it is still too soon to determine what the situation will be like in Aleppo, which was one of Syria’s most important economic and cultural hubs before the 5-year-old conflict.
“My return to Aleppo is a bit difficult now. It is true that Aleppo has been freed but the situation isn’t stable, not even by 1 percent. If I want to think about returning back, it would be a year or two yet,” he explained. “I don’t know anything about my house, but there is a possibility that I’ve lost it.”
For him, losing his home and having to rent while there is still no work isn’t something he can do. But his uncertainty is also compounded by fears that if he would be called up to the Syrian army if he returned.
Yet, when asked what scared him the most about returning, Mohammad replied: “Safety was the most important thing to us; now if we want to return back there’s no safety.”
He said he also thinks the battle for Aleppo isn’t over and he expects the rebels and the government to continue clashing. “No one won in this battle, [but] it’s the Syrian people that lost,” he explained.
Rasha Alan, who fled to Lebanon from the until-recently opposition-controlled southeast Aleppo neighborhood of Sukkari, seconded Mohammad’s concerns.
The 35-old-year old mother of three said she would not go back home without compensation from the government. “My husband used to work in Lebanon [before the war], but when we bought a house in Aleppo and decided to settle, we moved back. We only stayed there for two years before leaving it. Everything was new,” Alan said. “I have pictures of it now and it’s all damaged.”
She said her family has been in Lebanon since 2014, but before she left she stayed with her parents who live in the nearby regime-controlled Malaab area of central Aleppo. However, she explained that even there life was tough and she would rather remain in Lebanon with relative stability than relive the challenges in Syria.
“It would be at least a year before I decide to return back. If things calm down, schools reopen and the area fully operates again I will be among the first to return,” Alan explained. “But now I will go back to what?”
Yet Alan said she was glad that the Syrian Army had won the battle for Aleppo. She explained that the regime triumphed because it was in the right. “Those who are right will win. They’re protecting us,” she said.
Having been in Lebanon since the end of 2011, Nour al-Hasan – also not her real name – saw her house in Aleppo’s Salaheddine neighborhood being burned down during the fighting.
“I don’t think about returning to Aleppo,” Hasan said. “Things aren’t stable.”
What concerns Hasan about returning home is the risk of kidnapping. She fears she and her husband will be taken either for retaliation, for ransom or for organ trafficking.
Although she expressed fears of the regime, she said the rebels scare her even more as she said they have committed many terrible acts.
“Things under the regime are safer and you know what they consist of,” she said. “We don’t know what the others [rebel groups] consist of.”
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