On the doorsteps of Damascus and Homs countryside .. The displaced are waiting for the difficult return

Mohammed al-Jazaeri - Aleppo countryside

Abu Majd, a resident of the northern Syrian city of Daraya, who left in early 2013 for Damascus, is seeking a return permit to his city, but his hopes are dashed day by day after he was denied security clearance by the regime for unknown reasons.

"We are exhausted by the cost of living in Damascus," Abu Majd said. "Our suffering will continue because the Mukhabarat refused to return to my city." "I came to Daraya several times for a few hours, after bribing regime members at the checkpoints around the city to see my house in need of repair," he said bitterly.

The Syrian regime pursues a policy of obtaining security clearance to enter cities controlled by the armed opposition. While the population considers this policy a collective punishment, observers believe that it is because of the inability of the regime to restore basic services to cities because of its economic inability.

The official SANA news agency reported earlier this month that the number of returnees to Daraya exceeded 1,000 families, and quoted city council chairman Marwan Obaid that the removal of rubble is not over, since the rehabilitation of houses is still ongoing, in addition to providing services to the population of Daraya, who exceeded the number before the revolution Two hundred thousand people.

Activists say that the regime forces resettle militias loyal to them in a number of cities in Homs and its countryside as a reward for fighting alongside him, notably the cities of Qusayr, Bab Omar and Jub al-Jandali, and many neighborhoods of the old district of Homs, where the destruction rate did not exceed 70%.

The system requires the presence of homeowners to receive it. "After our displacement to the north of Syria, the Shabiha of the regime took control of our houses and relatives and provided them to pro-regime families and fighters in the militias that fought with the regime," said Anwar Abdel Latif, one of the displaced in Homs.

"One of the civilians who stayed in Homs paid huge sums of money to drive a pro-regime family out of his house because the judiciary is unable to do so," he said.

Reasons for prevention
Jurists say the regime seeks demographic change in militarily controlled cities by settling families of Iranian fighters and loyalists through Law No. 10, which authorizes the regime to control the property of dissidents in Syria.

Activists say the returnees are now mostly elderly, and those who have returned are forced to serve in the regime in Idlib and Lattakia countryside.

Fool the system
"The regime aims at the return of the displaced to deceive the countries concerned with the Syrian affairs and human rights organizations and their followers by telling them that it is carrying out its national duty and that it is not those who abandon them or seek to displace them," says social scientist Hamed Issa.

"The regime also seeks to seize the money and property of the displaced for the purpose of demographic change, and to show that its survival by rule is necessary for safety and stability."

It is noteworthy that the areas under the control of the regime is no longer inhabited only about 40% of the original population, while its people were displaced to the north of Syria or emigrated outside the country, in search of safety and stability away from war.