by Hummam Sheikh Ali
ALEPPO, Syria, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Amid plastic barrels, wires, and countless destroyed belongings, Muhammad Deeb made his way through the rubbles of his shabby house in eastern Aleppo, the worst-hit ancient city that has suffered massive destruction in the Syrian Civil War.
Everything was in gray but portraits of his late wife and son, the only thing that was hanging on the wall. Dusts were wiped off their images, while the face of the 65-year-old man was filled with sorrow, revealing his everlasting innermost grief.
Deeb's house was in the rebel-held part during the battles. A rocket shell that slammed his three-storey house killed his wife and son, yet he survived with wounds in his head.
"Me, my wife and kids were still asleep when something slammed our building. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I lost my wife and son," he told Xinhua at the shattered entrance of his house.
Despite the great loss and misfortune, Deeb said his faith was strong and he would never leave his home, which needs to be rebuilt from scratch. The house is like a shattered box filled with memories of his beloved ones that he would never be able to get over.
"I will not leave, where should I go? I will clean it and even if I had to stay in it like this, I will stay. This is my house, the fruit of my entire life and hard work," he said, choking back the tears.
Houses in other neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo were all under the same condition. Zakariah Akeed, a man in his 60s, lived right next door.
Akeed also lost two floors of his apartment building, but he was fortunate enough that none of his family members got hurt since they fled the neighborhood when the rebels took over in 2012. Now the man has returned and started fixing his house with two of his sons.
"I was happy that I came back, but when I saw the amount of destruction my brain was boiling. We started fixing what could be fixed but the restoration costs lots of money. That's why we put the reparation on hold," Akeed said he would still stay even though with no electricity and shortage of water.
One of his son, Muhammad, said he goes to sleep every day after praying that the house would not collapse over their heads, as the cracks in the wall and the sinking parts of the house all indicate that it could fall down at any minute.
"I left here before the rebels took over and returned to find it badly damaged, and frankly I don't know how to fix this home. I hope I can get some help to rebuild it," he said.
This is just one of the cases of all the families who started to return. Children were playing in the streets with innocent laughters, men in white garments were walking to pray in a half-destroyed mosque, and both the old and the young were trying to bring life back into this doomed area.
Following intense battles, the rebels evacuated eastern Aleppo in December 2016. Now it is like a life-versus-death area, where young people's reverberating giggles are starting to cover the broken hearts.
