Nazir Abu Khadouj returned to Jobar near Damascus with his daughters three months ago, after his wife died. All that is left of his home are parts of the walls. The floor tiles and fittings were stripped and looted during the civil war.
The Syrian father of three planted roses around his old patio and a vegetable patch on the street. “I was living in Ghouta [in the Damascus countryside]. We moved home 11 times. I came back here. Thankfully it is working out,” he told The National.
He has no neighbours, and there are no shops or clinics nearby, or schools for his daughters. “People tell me it’s like living in the desert. But I had to come back to my hometown. A man living away from his hometown, it's not a life,” he insisted.
With the fighting ending since the Assad regime was toppled, and amid rising rents in Damascus, residents of Jobar and other areas near the capital are slowly returning to the ruins of their former homes, even if they are not safe to live in.
Jobar was heavily shelled for years by the troops of the former regime and allied Russian forces during the civil war. It is hard to imagine that there ever was life here. The buildings have been stripped of furniture and fittings and their walls are crumbling. The windows have no glass, and there is no electricity or water supply.
Mr Abu Khadouj recalled how Jobar was thriving before the war. “This street was called Tiba Street. When we lived here before the war, you’d see 300 people walk past every half-hour,” he said. “Today there is nobody.”
Demining and explosive clearance experts say the neighbourhood is not yet safe to live in. “There are unexploded bombs everywhere, buildings could collapse at any time, and there are tunnels beneath buildings,” said Hussein Qazhali, who works on mine and bomb clearance with the British charity Halo Trust.
But Mr Abu Khadouj is dismissive of the danger. His girls play outside the house, despite the risk of unexploded devices still hidden in the rubble. “There were a few mines and unexploded devices around us when we came, but the boys from the civil defence removed them,” he said.
“Everything is good. There’s nothing here,” he insisted.
On the day of The National's visit, Abdul Hamid Douara, a member of the local council, found two handmade unexploded devices beneath a staircase where two men were trying to clear their old home to rebuild it.
He brought them back to the council’s office, which operates from a makeshift building alongside other charities, shrugging off guidance that he must not touch the devices. “There were two men clearing their home with a digger. They wanted to fix their homes. They called me when they found the two objects,” he said.
Mr Qazhali is disappointed that people are still rummaging through the destroyed buildings by themselves despite the risks. He reminds Mr Douara not to touch the devices and to call the charity immediately if any more are found.
At least 800 people, almost a third of them children, have been killed by mines and unexploded devices since the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, according to the Halo Trust's figures.
The deaths were mainly due to people returning to homes in areas containing explosives. Of the 2,300 people reported injured, 40 per cent were children, the charity said. Other cases may have gone unreported.
Some roads in Jobar were cleared of unexploded devices this year, paving the way for recovery work.
But Mr Douara fears that people will be driven back to the neighbourhood too soon because of rising rents. “The biggest challenge that is scarier than unexploded devices is housing rentals and the urge that people have to come back to their homes,” he said.
“A few people have returned, you could count them with your fingers. They’re coming here because they were forced to – the landlords raised the rents and want their homes back,” he said.
“Whoever comes back has to be wary of the dangers, and take the greatest precautions” he said.
It is clear that those who return do so because they have nowhere else to go. Two brothers told The National they were clearing a house with only one ground-floor room still standing so their family could move in with them. They too have grown a large vegetable patch outside the house.
They did not want to be photographed. “We don't want people to think that we're asking for anything,” they said.
The wartime destruction was followed by a looting campaign, during which the cash-strapped Assad regime stripped buildings of their metal foundations for re-sale.
It is this activity and the length of time passed that leads residents to believe the area is safe. “Everything that was dropped has already exploded,” said Mr Abu Khadouj.
He insists that the residents must return to bring life back to the neighbourhood and start rebuilding. “People think that someone is going to come and give them back the keys to their homes and say welcome back? That will never happen,” he said.
“A person has to come back and work with his own hands. If he doesn’t work nothing will happen.”
