AL AWASH, May 29 (AFP): Aref Shamtan, 73, preferred to pitch a tent near his destroyed home in northwest Syria rather than stay in a camp for the displaced following longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster.
"I feel good here, even among the rubble," Shamtan said, sipping tea at the tent near his field.
When he and his son returned after Assad's December 8 overthrow, Shamtan found his village of Al-Hawash, nestled among farmland in central Hama province, badly damaged. The roof of their house was gone and its walls were cracked.
But "living in the rubble is better than living in the camps" near the border with Turkey, where he had been since 2011 after fleeing the fighting, Shamtan said.
Since Islamist forces ousted Assad after nearly 14 years of war, 1.87 million Syrians who were refugees abroad or internally displaced have returned to their areas of origin, the United Nations' International Organization for Migration says.
The IOM says the "lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge" for those returning home.
Shamtan, who cannot afford to rebuild, decided around two months ago to leave the camp with his family and young grandchildren, and has started planting his farmland with wheat.
Al-Hawash had been controlled by Assad's forces and was along the front lines with neighbouring Idlib province, which became a bastion for opposition factions, particularly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group that led the offensive that toppled Assad.
"We can't stay in the camps," Shamtan insisted, even if "the village is all destroyed... and life is non-existent", lacking basic services and infrastructure.
"We decided... to live here until things improve. We are waiting for organisations and the state to help us," he said. "Life is tough."
Local official Abdel Ghafour al-Khatib, 72, has also returned after fleeing in 2019 with his wife and children for a camp near the border.
"I just wanted to get home. I was overjoyed... I returned and pitched a worn-out tent. Living in my village is the important thing," he said.
"Everyone wants to return," he said. But many cannot even afford the transport to do so in a country where 90 percent of people live in poverty.
