Aleppo, Dec 19: The moment he arrived home to Syria from Turkiye, Ahmed al-Kassem held his sister in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. They hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade and now were reunited only days after the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But soon, the former refugee’s joy was tinged by uncertainty about the future of his war-torn homeland. His old house in the city of Aleppo was too damaged to live in, and the family home he had brought his wife and children to had no electricity or running water.
“If I had known, I don’t know if I would have come,” the 38-year-old al-Kassem said. “Our life in Turkiye was not perfect, but what we are seeing here is a disaster.” Al-Kassem and his family are among the more than 7,600 Syrian refugees who Turkish officials say have crossed back into Syria from Turkiye since December 9 when Assad was swept out of power by insurgents.
Thousands more have come back from neighbouring Lebanon. The Associated Press documented the return of al-Kassem’s family, from their crossing out of Turkiye with a truckload of belongings on December 13 to their first days in Aleppo, a city still scarred by the long civil war. They leave behind a life they built in Turkiye over the past 11 years. Four of his five children were born in Turkiye and know Syria and their relatives here only through video chats. For al-Kassem and his wife, it’s a chance to rejoin their family, resume their lives, and introduce their kids — three girls and two boys aged 7 to 14 — to their Syrian heritage. (PTI)
