عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Syria Registers an Uptick in Number of Tourists

A seller waits for tourists in the historic market of Damascus, Syria, in April 2011 (Getty Images)
A seller waits for tourists in the historic market of Damascus, Syria, in April 2011 (Getty Images)
TT
20
TT

Syria Registers an Uptick in Number of Tourists

A seller waits for tourists in the historic market of Damascus, Syria, in April 2011 (Getty Images)
A seller waits for tourists in the historic market of Damascus, Syria, in April 2011 (Getty Images)

The owner of an oriental shop in the old city of Damascus was asked if European tourists had returned to the historic streets of the Syrian capital.

“I couldn't believe what I saw... Two tourists coming from China to Damascus looked like they came straight out of a folk-art magazine. Everyone who saw them in the Hamidiyah market wanted to take a picture with them,” the owner, who requested anonymity, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The owner also confirmed the arrival of European tourists but noted that the numbers are still very low.

While mentioning that the two Chinese tourists walking around in traditional wear turned into a spectacle in the market, the owner said: “For the past 10 years, we haven't seen European tour groups like those that used to come to Syria before the war.”

“The majority of those who arrived last year wander about to observe the lifestyle in Damascus and engage with locals, rather than visiting historical sites or purchasing traditional products,” explained the owner.

The proprietor of the oriental emporium expressed delight at the arrival of a European tour group, comprising over 20 tourists who scanned the wares.

However, they only purchased a single postcard, perhaps as a memento.

Even though the store is in a tourist district that draws visitors to sacred sites, there is no buying activity, reported the owner.

Syrian Minister of Tourism Rami Martini announced in media statements on Wednesday an uptick in visitor numbers, with 385,000 arrivals in the first quarter of 2023.

Of these, 345,000 are from Arab countries, while 40,000 are foreigners.

Notably, during the same period in 2022, there were 236,000 arrivals, consisting of 206,000 from Arab countries and 30,000 from foreign nations.

Martini did not disclose the nationalities of the foreign tourists, but local sources indicated that most of them are from allied nations such as Russia, Iran, and China, as well as expatriate Syrians who hold foreign passports.

Most Viewed

 
Arab World

In Besieged Sudan’s El-Fasher, Neighbors Improvise First Aid for Wounded

FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
TT
20
TT

In Besieged Sudan’s El-Fasher, Neighbors Improvise First Aid for Wounded

FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

For a week, eight-year-old Mohamed has suffered the pain of shrapnel stuck in his arm. But he is one of the lucky ones in Sudan’s western city El-Fasher, which is under paramilitary attack.
“One of our neighbors used to be a nurse. She helped us stop the bleeding,” Mohamed’s father, Issa Said, 27, told AFP via satellite connection under a total communications blackout.
Like an estimated one million more people trapped in the city under a year-long siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Said cannot get to a hospital for emergency care.
With only the most meagre supplies remaining in El-Fasher, his family is among those whose only medical help has come from neighbors and family members who improvise.

In its quest to seize the North Darfur state capital — the only major Darfur city it has not conquered during two years of war with Sudan’s army — the RSF has launched attack after attack, which have been repelled by army and allied forces.

Even if people were to brave the streets, the Saudi Hospital is the only partially functioning one now, according to a medical source there, and even that has come under repeated attack.
Mohamed, an aid coordinator who fled to El-Fasher after getting shot in the thigh during an RSF attack days ago on the nearby famine-hit Zamzam displacement camp, estimates hundreds of injured civilians are trapped in the city.
According to aid sources, hundreds of thousands have fled Zamzam for the city, which is already on the brink of mass starvation according to a UN-backed assessment.
Yet the people of El-Fasher have “opened their homes to the wounded,” Mohamed told AFP, requesting to be identified by his first name for safety.
“If you have the money, you send someone to buy clean gauze or painkillers if they can find any, but you have to make do with what you have,” said Mohamed, whose leg wound meant he had to be carried the 15 kilometers from Zamzam to the city, a journey that took hours.

In crowded living rooms and kitchens, civilians with barely any medical training cobble together emergency first aid, using household items and local medicinal plants to treat burns, gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries.
Another victim, Mohamed Abakar, 29, said he was fetching water for his family when a bullet pierced his leg.
The limb immediately broke underneath him, and a neighbor dragged him into his home, fashioning him a splint out of a few pieces of wood and cloth.
“Even if it heals my broken leg, the bullet is still inside,” Abakar told AFP, also by satellite link.

By Monday, the RSF’s recent attacks on El-Fasher and surrounding displacement camps had killed more than 400 people, according to the UN.
At least 825,000 children are trapped in “hell on Earth” in the city and its environs, the UN children’s agency UNICEF has warned.
The people of El-Fasher have suffered a year of RSF siege in a city the Sudanese military has also bombed from the air.
Residents have taken to hiding from the shelling in makeshift bunkers, which are often just hastily dug holes topped with bags of sand.

But not everyone makes it in time.

On Wednesday, a shell broke through Hanaa Hamad’s home, shrapnel tearing apart her husband’s abdomen before they could scramble to safety.
“A neighbor and I treated him as best we could. We disinfected the wound with table salt and we managed to stop the bleeding,” the 34-year-old mother of four told AFP.

But by morning, he had succumbed to his injuries, too severe for his wife and neighbor to handle.