BEIRUT: After more than four years of brutal street fighting and punishing aerial bombardments, the staggering extent of destruction in Aleppo begins to emerge: Tens of thousands of homes and apartments are uninhabitable, most factories have been looted or destroyed and some ancient landmarks have been reduced to rubble.
Reconstruction would likely take years and cost tens of billions of dollars, experts say. Some of Aleppo’s centuries-old cultural heritage may have been lost for good. And healing the wounds in a city once split between a wealthier, pro-regime west and a poorer, pro-rebel east could take even greater effort.
Damage assessments emerged as the Syrian regime announced Thursday that it had assumed full control of the city — a significant victory in a nearly six-year battle with an armed opposition trying to unseat President Bashar Assad. In recent months, rebels rapidly lost ground in the city as Assad and military allies Russia and Iran stepped up attacks.
Located at the crossroads of ancient trade routes, Aleppo was Syria’s biggest city before the war, with more than 3 million residents and a world-famous cuisine. It served as the country’s industrial hub, home to factories producing textiles, plastics and pharmaceuticals. Its ancient center, recognized as a World Heritage site, drew large numbers of tourists.
Today, Aleppo “resembles those cities that were stricken during World War II,” said Maamoun Abdul-Karim, head of the regime’s museums and archaeology department. The scale of devastation has already evoked comparisons with cities like Grozny and Dresden.
But the destruction isn’t spread evenly.
Areas once held by the opposition suffered severe damage after being bombarded for months by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Some eastern neighborhoods look like they have been hit by an earthquake.
In parts of the regime-held west, life seemed almost normal. Children attended schools, adults went to work and restaurants and coffee shops were packed. Crude weapons used by the rebels, including mortars and home-made “hell cannons,” caused some damage and casualties in regime-held areas closer to the front lines.
UN satellite images identified more than 33,500 damaged residential buildings in the city, with the most recent photos taken in mid-September, according to a map published this week. A majority of the buildings would have been multi-unit apartment blocks common in Aleppo, said Olivier Vandamme, an official at the UN agency that provided the map.
Reconstruction would likely take years and cost tens of billions of dollars, experts say. Some of Aleppo’s centuries-old cultural heritage may have been lost for good. And healing the wounds in a city once split between a wealthier, pro-regime west and a poorer, pro-rebel east could take even greater effort.
Damage assessments emerged as the Syrian regime announced Thursday that it had assumed full control of the city — a significant victory in a nearly six-year battle with an armed opposition trying to unseat President Bashar Assad. In recent months, rebels rapidly lost ground in the city as Assad and military allies Russia and Iran stepped up attacks.
Located at the crossroads of ancient trade routes, Aleppo was Syria’s biggest city before the war, with more than 3 million residents and a world-famous cuisine. It served as the country’s industrial hub, home to factories producing textiles, plastics and pharmaceuticals. Its ancient center, recognized as a World Heritage site, drew large numbers of tourists.
Today, Aleppo “resembles those cities that were stricken during World War II,” said Maamoun Abdul-Karim, head of the regime’s museums and archaeology department. The scale of devastation has already evoked comparisons with cities like Grozny and Dresden.
But the destruction isn’t spread evenly.
Areas once held by the opposition suffered severe damage after being bombarded for months by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Some eastern neighborhoods look like they have been hit by an earthquake.
In parts of the regime-held west, life seemed almost normal. Children attended schools, adults went to work and restaurants and coffee shops were packed. Crude weapons used by the rebels, including mortars and home-made “hell cannons,” caused some damage and casualties in regime-held areas closer to the front lines.
UN satellite images identified more than 33,500 damaged residential buildings in the city, with the most recent photos taken in mid-September, according to a map published this week. A majority of the buildings would have been multi-unit apartment blocks common in Aleppo, said Olivier Vandamme, an official at the UN agency that provided the map.
