Jwanah Qudsi currently works in the United Nations in New York but she grew up in Aleppo, leaving the war-torn city in 2011 with her family. She says she chose to return because “security had improved since the government retook the East, and a few like me, who’d fled the fighting, were chancing a trip back. I returned to Aleppo knowing that it wouldn’t be the same place I’d left.”
Here are some snippets from her harrowing account back home:
“Eastern Aleppo, the larger of the city’s two sides, had borne the brunt of the fight and had often been shelled. Now it resembled a ghost town, with occasional signs of life… The west, which had been controlled by the regime throughout the conflict, had seen significantly less damage. It was exactly as I remembered it. The buildings were almost all intact, and the streets had potholes but were brimming with traffic. Stalls were set up along almost every road: food, cellphone cases, bread, lamps. People were everywhere, children mostly, crossing the streets at every angle and every pace.”
“I caught up with cousins, family friends, parents of friends who had moved abroad, and friends who remained. They all told me their stories. One friend, whose husband worked as a trauma surgeon at the University Hospital in Western Aleppo, showed me a handful of odd objects he had extracted from patients and clandestinely kept as reminders…. My cousin could not believe I had actually returned. She had earned her degree in biotechnology from the University of Aleppo but was having trouble finding a job in her field. Most people were having trouble finding any job. And those who did are paid prewar salaries, even though inflation has risen tenfold.”
“… Western Aleppo still lacks basic services. Running water comes and goes throughout the day now, but before December, it could come once a week for an hour. My best friend’s mom would fill a container and use it all week: cleaning, showering, cooking. In the freezing winter, when heating gas was close to nonexistent, bathing was optional… Electricity was also sporadic when the city was divided, but today its availability has created a luxury market of its own. “
“Everywhere, unfinished buildings are boarded up and used as shelters. So are old schools, mosque halls, abandoned homes, empty offices. Displaced people from destroyed parts of the city or nearby towns live, officially or unofficially, in every possible space the city has to offer. ‘People broke into my dad’s office downtown and started living there, so he had to force them out,’ my friend told me, referring to an unused office.”
“… I spent my last day in Aleppo running errands with the family car. But I slammed on the brakes when a boy of about 10 ran across the road, cigarette in hand. It was the middle of a weekday. Children around his age and younger waited outside restaurants, asking people for food… I found myself staring at children who looked 6, realizing that they were the physical embodiment of the length of this war. They have never known their country at peace.”
