Bassam Dabbas did not think he would survive to see his hometown of al-Qaryatain, Syria, retaken when Islamic State (IS) militants seized control and captured him and hundreds of other Christians.
Now, about eight months later, he stands in the charred remains of the Mar Elian Church where he once used to pray and struggles to digest that he has returned to see government forces in charge.
“I have just come back today,” the 55-year-old mechanical engineer said. “I still haven’t seen my house.”
Photo: AFP
Al-Qaryatain was once viewed as a symbol of tolerance where Christian and Muslim communities had lived together for centuries, but when Islamic State militants arrived in August last year, all that changed.
Dabbas was one of about 270 Christians rounded up and transported about 90km east, deeper into the Syrian desert and locked up by militants in an underground dungeon.
“You cannot believe their behavior: there is no human behavior at all,” said Dabbas, who dreams of restarting his small business making raisin butter. “It’s hard to believe that I am still alive.”
Luckily for the group, after 25 days most were released — Dabbas does not know why — and he returned to al-Qaryatain before eventually fleeing the Islamic State-controlled territory for a government-held village near the central city of Homs, Syria.
Now, just five days after regime forces recaptured the town in what appears to have been ferocious fighting, he is one of a small trickle of about 30,000 people who used to live here who have begun to return.
They have found streets filled with rubble, ransacked houses with holes blasted in them and a ghost town that is likely to take a long time to rebuild.
Just off a central square, Faisal Abhel Rahim shows journalists through the home he has just come back to.
The living room ceiling is smashed in, the kitchen is in chaos and a lot of possessions have been looted.
“I am very sad to see it like this, it is very painful,” he said. “We hope the Russian and Syrian armies return security to this town and then we can rebuild everything again.”
The capture of al-Qaryatain is part of a broader offensive that has seen Syrian government forces backed up by Russian firepower retake the historic city of Palmyra, Syria — about 100km to the northeast — and delivered a major propaganda coup for both Damascus and Moscow.
Russian soldiers in Moscow on Friday handed out food packages to civilians from the back of an army truck in front of the cameras of journalists on a tightly controlled visit organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“There was a very fierce battle to take control of the town, but thank God we were successful with the help of our friends,” Syrian Army colonel Ezdasher Mando said.
However, the situation remains extremely fragile, and Mando said the nearest Islamic State militant positions are in hills about 10km to 15km away.
“We are getting ready to beat them back still further,” he said.
For the people of al-Qaryatain, the main focus now is trying to return their lives and their homes to the way they were before militants came.
Retired Syrian Army officer Mustafa Shablakh has come back to town with his brother, but left the rest of his family in Homs.
He said his house has been “50 percent destroyed” and is currently occupied by a pro-government militia that refuses to leave.
However, the main thing for him is to be back in his hometown and rid of Islamic State militants.
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