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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP

Sitting by a bed strewn with rubble in Syria's second biggest city, Umm Mounir refuses to leave her home even though the deadly earthquake has torn a gaping hole into the room.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Türkiye and Syria and flattening entire neighborhoods.

The building adjacent to Umm Mounir's collapsed, ripping the rear facade off her own home, but she told AFP that neither natural disasters nor conflict can make her leave.

"Nothing will make me move out of my house except death," said the 55-year-old, who lives by herself on the fourth floor of the heavily damaged seven-story building.

"I will only leave for the grave."

Her city suffered great losses in the February 6 quake that flattened 54 of its buildings and damaged historic sites.

With at least 432 fatalities, Aleppo accounts for nearly a third of all deaths in regime-held parts of Syria, according to state media.

Officials and medics across the war-ravaged country, including in opposition-controlled areas, put the overall Syrian death toll at more than 3,600 people.

"We are people of glory and wealth, but the war changed everything," said Umm Mounir, glancing at the wreckage of her wooden furniture.

"Even in the harshest years of the war we were not displaced," added the woman, whose home in the Masharika neighborhood was near the frontline. "We will not be displaced now."

More than 30 people died in Masharika after the pre-dawn quake brought down two buildings over sleeping residents.

Seemingly incessant aftershocks spooked traumatized survivors, and a 6.4-magnitude tremor on Monday rocked the same areas of Türkiye and Syria.

When the new quake hit, Umm Mounir grabbed her 85-year-old neighbor Amina Raslan, who lives on the first floor, and they rushed out.

"She can't run, so I held her hand and we walked as fast as we could," Umm Mounir said.

Raslan's son, who lives with his mother, said they "got used to the danger because our home used to be on the frontline" where rockets and missiles had rained down.

Puffing a cigarette, 55-year-old Ali al-Bash said he wished they could leave their damaged home, but that "we have nowhere else to go".

Raslan's eyes welled with tears as she recalled the destruction of the home she said her family had lived in for 50 years.

"Everything collapsed," she told AFP as her grandchildren were playing around her.

The family, like many others, did not want to move to a shelter but could not afford to rent a new home, Raslan said.

"I lost two of my children during the war. I don't want to leave my house... I don't want to lose anything else."

Some Aleppo residents, however, have left ravaged homes for tents.

Mohammed Jawish, 63, now lives in a makeshift camp with dozens of families after his building partially collapsed.

"If I still had a house I wouldn't be here," he said, watching his grandchildren -- some of them barefoot in the winter cold -- play with a worn-out football.

Jawish told AFP the quake cost him his belongings and sent him "back to square one".

"My chest feels tight when I'm in this small tent," he said. "I feel I could die from sorrow."

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Stay or Go? The Dilemma of Türkiye's Syrian Refugees 

For many Syrian refugees living in Türkiye, the idea of going home raises many worrying questions. (AFP)
For many Syrian refugees living in Türkiye, the idea of going home raises many worrying questions. (AFP)
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Stay or Go? The Dilemma of Türkiye's Syrian Refugees 

For many Syrian refugees living in Türkiye, the idea of going home raises many worrying questions. (AFP)
For many Syrian refugees living in Türkiye, the idea of going home raises many worrying questions. (AFP)

More than 50,000 Syrian refugees have left Türkiye to return home since Bashar al-Assad's ouster. But for many others living in the country, the thought raises a host of worrying questions.

In Altindag, a northeastern suburb of Ankara home to many Syrians, Radigue Muhrabi, who has a newborn and two other children, said she could not quite envisage going back to Syria "where everything is so uncertain".

"My husband used to work with my father at his shoe shop in Aleppo but it was totally destroyed. We don't know anything about work opportunities nor schools for the kids," she said.

After the civil war began in 2011, Syria's second city was badly scarred by fighting between the opposition and Russian-backed regime forces.

Even so, daily life in Türkiye has not been easy for the Syrian refugees who have faced discrimination, political threats of expulsion and even physical attacks.

In August 2021, an angry mob smashed up shops and cars thought to belong to Syrians in Altindag as anti-migrant sentiment boiled over at a time of deepening economic insecurity in Türkiye.

Basil Ahmed, a 37-year-old motorcycle mechanic, recalled the terror his two young children experienced when the mob smashed the windows of their home.

Even so, he said he was not thinking of going straight back.

- 'Not the same Syria' -

"We have nothing in Aleppo. Here, despite the difficulties, we have a life," he said.

"My children were born here, they don't know Syria."

As the Assad regime brutally cracked down on the population, millions fled in fear, explained Murat Erdogan, a university professor who specializes in migration.

"Now he's gone, many are willing to return but the Syria they left is not the same place," he told AFP.

"Nobody can predict what the new Syrian government will be like, how they will enforce their authority, what Israel will do nor how the clashes (with Kurdish fighters) near the Turkish border will develop," he said.

"The lack of security is a major drawback."

On top of that is the massive infrastructure damage caused by more than 13 years of civil war, with very limited electricity supplies, a ruined public health service and problems with finding housing.

At the SGDD-ASAM, a local association offering workshops and advice to migrants, 16-year-old Rahseh Mahruz was preparing to go back to Aleppo with her parents.

But she knew she would not find the music lessons there that she has enjoyed in Ankara.

- 'No emotional ties to Syria' -

"All my memories, the things I normally do are here. There's nothing there, not even electricity or internet. I don't want to go but my family has decided we will," she said.

Of the 2.9 million Syrians in Türkiye, 1.7 million are under 18 and have few emotional links to their homeland, said the association's director Ibrahim Vurgun Kavlak.

"Most of these youngsters don't have strong emotional, psychological or social ties with Syria. Their idea of Syria is based on what their families have told them," he explained.

And there may even be problems with the language barrier, said professor Erdogan.

"Around 816,000 Syrian children are currently studying in Turkish schools. They have been taught in Turkish for years and some of them don't even know Arabic," he said.

During a visit to Türkiye earlier this week, EU crisis commissioner Hadja Lahbib told AFP she shared "the sense of uncertainty felt by the refugees".

"The situation is unstable, it's changing and nobody knows which direction it will go in," she said.

"I've come with 235 million euros ($245 million) worth of aid for refugees in Syria and in the surrounding countries like Türkiye and Jordan, to meet them and see what worries them and how to respond to that," she said.

If there ends up being a huge wave of Syrians heading home, it will likely have an unsettling impact on certain sectors of Türkiye's workforce.

Although they are often paid low wages, commonly under the table, their absence would leave a gaping hole, notably in the textile and construction industries.

For Erdogan, the economic shock of such a shift could ultimately be beneficial for Türkiye, forcing it to move away from the exploitation of cheap labor.

"We cannot continue a development model based on exploitation," he said.