Syria’s Homs looks to rebuild but old wounds remain open

Old wounds are still open and painful. Like tens of thousands of other Syrians, he lost a loved one, a brother, in the secret torture cells of Saydnaya prison. When the doors of this notorious prison in Damascus were flung open last week, he did not emerge.

This aching hurt and exhilarating happiness is palpable, especially for Syrians now able to make a bittersweet return to Homs. Entire sections are still jagged cityscapes of grey rubble and gaping ruins.

“I needed to see this again but it brings painful flashbacks,” Dr Hayan al-Abrash remarks as his eyes scan the haunting landscape of loss in the neighbourhood of Khalidiyah, pulverised by Syrian firepower.

He points to the skeletal remains of a soaring building whose facade was shaved off by a scud missile. It brought two other buildings crashing to the ground.

He was also forced to leave the besieged Old City in 2014, leaving behind his makeshift underground hospital there and in nearby Khalidiyah.

He struggles to locate it until a shopkeeper shows up to unlock and unfurl a metal shutter. It reveals a gutted warehouse with rickety metal stairs leading into a dark dank basement.

“Yes, yes, this is it,” he declares excitedly as our flashlights illuminate the cavernous space, including another set of stairs. “This is where the patients entered,” he explains.

“Sometimes I brought friends, neighbours, my own cousin, down these stairs on my back.”

It is next to a wall daubed with arrows pointing to the “emergency room” as well as “the road to death” – humour even darker than this room.

The green and black flag of the opposition, now ubiquitous, stands out.