Homs — Five years after the Syrian army liberated Homs, this city is still trapped. CBS News asked architect and author Marwa al-Sabouni if she has faith in the government to rebuild.
“No, the short answer in no,” she said.
For the long answer, al-Sabouni walked 12 stories up a burnt out office building to see what’s left of her studio.
“This is the floor where your studio was?” CBS News asked. “Yeah … it’s here,” she said.
“So what we’re looking at is what used to be your office … turned into a sniper’s den.”
Hundreds of bullet casings littered the floor, remnants of a three-year battle that destroyed an estimated 35,000 homes.
“At what point does the cloud of war disappear and you start to assign blame for all of this? Who do you blame?” CBS News asked.
“Personally, I have taken the decision not to blame anybody, because the scale of loss and the scale of atrocities makes it possible to blame everybody,” she said.
It’s estimated that more than half a million people have been killed in this war. Many Syrians have yet to see the full scale of loss. Traffic has jammed the Jordanian border as families who fled return to destruction.
From East Aleppo, where it could take six years just to clear the debris, to the tourist town of Palmyra.
Palmyra is perhaps best known for its ancient ruins, but it also had a thriving new city. Before the war started, 80,000 people lived there. Only 35 families have returned today.
Among them, Freda Mahmoud and her son who opened a small kebab stand two months ago.
“I hope everyone will come back,” she said, “because there’s something we say: ‘Even in heaven, if there’s no one around, you can’t sleep.'”
“We lost community, and we lost this social cohesion,” Marwa al-Sabouni.
She said rebuilding will be critical to reuniting Syria, but with an estimated $250 billion price tag and no commitment from the cash strapped Syrian government, stability and Syria’s future remain buried under millions of tons of rubble.
© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
