DOUMA, Syria (Reuters) – Seham Hamu misplaced her husband, son and granddaughter the identical night time in 2016 when a missile hit their residence in Douma, a insurgent stronghold close to the Syrian capital which noticed a few of the civilians’ fiercest combating warfare.

Now 74 and confined to a wheelchair resulting from coronary heart illness, she cares for the 4 surviving kids of her son, a widowed daughter and a second daughter along with her husband and kids .

Their destiny is just not uncommon in a rustic the place lots of of hundreds of individuals have been killed in a decade of violence and thousands and thousands extra have been pressured to flee their houses and settle elsewhere in Syria or overseas.

Because the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the battle approaches in mid-March 2011, Hamu simply desires to neglect.

“I do not wish to keep in mind … it was too merciless,” she stated of the warfare, a multi-faceted battle that drew Islamist militants, a myriad of insurgent teams, authorities troops and international forces.

Hamu, who was born and raised in Douma, has by no means left the town, which nonetheless reveals the scars of violence.

It’s again beneath authorities management after a Russian-backed army marketing campaign helped President Bashar al-Assad power Jaish al-Islam, the insurgent group that managed Douma in 2018, to withdraw.

The aerial bombardment marketing campaign that drove them out adopted a years-long siege of lots of of hundreds of residents, lots of whom fled. Some who now want to reenter Turkish-controlled areas within the north aren’t allowed.

Douma is a part of the Japanese Ghouta area which touches the outskirts of Damascus.

The town in Japanese Ghouta was the location of a suspected chemical assault in April 2018, which sparked missile strikes by the US, France and Britain in opposition to a number of suspected chemical weapons installations in Syria .

The Syrian authorities and its ally, Russia, have denied any involvement in such an assault.

Assad survived the insurgency, which started with peaceable protests in March 2011, as a part of the “Arab Spring” uprisings that rocked Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and past. However nowhere has the fallout been extra devastating than in Syria.

From a precarious place, Assad now dominates many elements of the nation, aided by the Russian military and Iranian Shiite militias.

Hostile Turkey nonetheless controls swathes of territory within the northwest and the US is current within the northeast, a significant oil and wheat producing space.

Earlier than the battle, Hamu lived along with her husband, a farmer who owned a mini-market. Comparatively nicely off, the household was in a position to safe marriages for son Subhi and the 2 daughters on the identical night time.

However the warfare escalated and, on the fateful night time of 2016, his life was shattered.

“I want there had been no warfare and that we had lived in security. However it’s the will of God, ”she stated.

The second flooring of his conventional home continues to be charred and broken by the flames that engulfed him in 2016, a everlasting reminder of his loss.

RETURN

Individuals are step by step returning to Douma and different former rebel-controlled areas now that the combating has died down.

Greater than half of Syria’s pre-war inhabitants is both internally displaced or refugees, based on new figures launched by the UN Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Faris al-Barghout, who runs a neighborhood charity, says life is step by step returning to Douma, with colleges and providers restored. However the warfare has left its mark: there are round 3,200 orphans within the metropolis registered along with his affiliation alone.

“Individuals are secure and have began to return to regular life,” he stated.

Outlets and companies are open and the streets are full of automobiles as individuals go about their every day enterprise.

However Hamu’s son-in-law, Yassin al-Afa, doesn’t give hope that he’ll quickly return to the place he was earlier than 2011.

Afa was as soon as a builder who earned sufficient revenue to assist his household. Now he’s unemployed and confined to his mattress after main again surgical procedure, making bodily labor unimaginable.

He stated jobs had been scarce and he did not have the capital to begin his personal enterprise.

“We lived like kings. We had been working and will assist our family and there was one thing to stay up for, ”Afa stated of life earlier than the warfare.

Hamu’s household tragedy is just not distinctive to Douma.

Umm Bashir al-Saour, a 37-year-old warfare widow, lives along with her mother-in-law and 4 kids in the identical home.

She washes and chops lettuce to ship it to native eating places for a weekly wage to make ends meet.

She misplaced her husband and one in all her kids within the bombings over the past days of the battle.

“We had been hoping issues would get higher and I would not lose my husband, however he left us,” she stated.

“It is too late for us now, however I simply hope issues get higher for the youngsters.”