Bilal al-Rihani reopened his pastry shop, serving former residents eager to rebuild.
The town, once a key battleground, faces challenges with no schools or basic services.
Vegetation grows between crumbled walls and torn asphalt, and not a single street remains intact in Syria’s Maaret al-Numan, a key war battleground town being brought back to life by returnees.
Bilal al-Rihani reopened his pastry shop in the western town this week with his wife and 14-year-oldson.
The 45-year-old baker couldn’t stay away after years of exile, even amid the devastation surrounding him.
Working without water or electricity, the shop bustles with customers as they prepare cinnamon pastries – a family speciality for 150 years.
Cars weave through the ruins, honking to announce their arrival. Like Rihani, his customers are former residents displaced by war, eager to rebuild their homes and lives.
“I’m doing better business here than in the (displacement) camp!” Rihani said, pointing to the cracked road outside. “This street was the town’s busiest, day and night.”
Once home to nearly 100,000 people, Maaret al-Numan was devastated by years of war, turning it into a ghost town and a symbol of Syria’s destruction.
The town’s location on the strategic M5 highway, linking second city Aleppo to the capital Damascus, made it a key battleground from the outbreak of fighting in 2012.
Vegetation grows between crumbled walls and torn asphalt in Maaret al-Numan, once home to nearly 100,000 people, which became a key battleground since fighting broke out in the Syrian civil war in 2012 due to its location on the strategic M5 highway linking Aleppo to Damascus. Photo / AFP
But in 2020, Assad’s forces backed by Russian airstrikes retook the town after intense fighting, forcing the last remaining residents to flee to displacement camps in Idlib.
The war left Maaret al-Numan littered with mines and unexploded ordnance, deterring large-scale returns.
Authorities have yet to encourage people to return, but the White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group active in rebel areas, were working to clear debris and recover bodies.
At one site, they placed four bodies in mortuary bags.
“Soldiers from Assad’s army, killed by his own people,” one White Helmet member said, declining to elaborate.
The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 with the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests, resulted in more than half a million deaths and displaced millions of people.
At another intersection, a bulldozer clears collapsed stone walls from the streets.
“This neighbourhood is cleaned up, and we’re here to protect the people and their belongings,” said Jihad Shahin, a 50-year-old police officer.
“Activity is returning to the city, and we’ll rebuild better than before.”
