Life behind plastic in Syria’s window-less city

People walk past a damaged barbershop in a government-controlled district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on May 21, 2016. In Syria’s second city Aleppo, war-weary residents have replaced their fragile glass windows with nylon plastic. George Ourfalian/AFPShow less

ALEPPO // In a city where windows were blasted from their frames, residents of Aleppo go about their daily lives behind holes covered with plastic.

For inhabitants of the divided Syrian city, glass has become a liability rather than a luxury.

“Every window pane we have has been shattered by shelling,” said Ammar Wattar, an English teacher, as he fitted a hard plastic sheet into the window frame of his home in the government-held district of Al Midan.

“We changed it the first time, then the second time, the third time – until this time, we decided not to change it anymore.”

Windows are regularly blown out in rocket attacks and air strikes on Aleppo city, turning the shards into projectiles.

Replacing them is also expensive, so residents have been opting to cover the frames with sheets of plastic.

In many neighbourhoods, children can be seen slipping behind white tarpaulin hanging like curtains from the doorways of their homes.

Abandoned buildings are often identified by the partly smashed glass windows.

Clashes and bombardment have carried on in Aleppo despite a February 27 truce across parts of Syria and many attempts to secure a freeze on fighting in the city.

Asraa Al Masri, a teacher in a government-held district of the city, said a shard of glass flew into her daughter’s leg during a rocket attack.

She has since stopped replacing her windows with glass, but she now faces other worries.

“Bugs, dust, soot, loud noises, the burning smell of the generators, which are bad for your health and negatively affect our children while they’re studying,” she said.

Perhaps no one has seen as much shattered glass as Mohammed Bouz, who used to sell it in a shop in Al Midan.

“My stockpile has been destroyed many times during the shelling, and I haven’t been able to get new deliveries,” he said.

Before Syria’s war erupted in March 2011, a square metre of glass cost 425 Syrian pounds but it now fetches about 3,300.

Aleppo’s residents – many of whom have been jobless since war came to their city in 2012 – opt for the much cheaper plastic at a maximum of 500 pounds per square metre.

But for Umm Ahmad’s conservative Muslim family, no proper windows means no privacy.

Synthetic canvas billows in the wind, “so my daughters and I can only change our clothes in the bathroom or in the hallways so our neighbours don’t see us”, the 52-year-old said.

Privacy “is something really sacred for Aleppan families”.

Across the frontline in Aleppo’s rebel-held east, shopkeeper Ali Makansi recounted sitting in his grocery store one day when a mortar shell crashed into the roof of a nearby building.

“Because the explosion was so powerful, an entire window pane fell on me and cut the main nerve in my hand,” said the 32-year-old whose shop is in Al Shaar neighbourhood.

“All the houses and commercial buildings in Aleppo are using plastic now instead of glass,” he said. “Plastic is cheap and won’t hurt anyone if there’s an explosion nearby.”

Mohammed Jokhdar, a 29-year-old Arabic language teacher, sent his family to Turkey after his brother was killed in shelling last year.

He lives alone in his flat in Bustan Al Qasr district where he has covered the windows with sheets of transparent plastic.

“But the plastic doesn’t protect from the weather and sometimes water leaks through. It doesn’t block the noise either – I feel like I’m in the street.”

Abu Omar, 69, who lives in Tariq Al Bab neighbourhood, also complains about the noise and water leaks.

But “the biggest problem is the street cats. They tear the plastic and come into my home looking for food.”

* Agence France-Presse