{"id":31325,"date":"2019-01-31T23:25:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T23:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31325"},"modified":"2019-01-31T23:25:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T23:25:09","slug":"in-former-daesh-bastion-displaced-syrians-clamor-to-go-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31325","title":{"rendered":"In former Daesh bastion, displaced Syrians clamor to go home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nHAJJIN, Syria: In the former militant bastion of Hajjin in eastern Syria, 50-year-old Khaled Abed shouts at the top of his lungs amid the rubble, asking why he cannot go home.<\/p>\n

\nThe US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled Daesh from the town last month, but it has since forbidden anyone from returning to its town center.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI want to go home. Why can\u2019t I?\u201d Abed bellows in the street near what was once the town market but has become a cordoned off military area.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOur sons are the ones who liberated\u201d this town, says the father of four SDF fighters, wearing a checkered red-and-white scarf on his head.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy won\u2019t they allow us back? By God, it\u2019s outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBacked by airstrikes of the US-led coalition, the SDF is still battling the last militants south of Hajjin.<\/p>\n

\nAbed fled Hajjin last year while it was still under Daesh rule, seeking refuge in a camp for the displaced in SDF-held territory.<\/p>\n

\nHe returned in recent days to find his family\u2019s five homes destroyed, but wants access to rebuild them.<\/p>\n

\nThe SDF has allowed people to return to others parts of the town, but not in its devastated center.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo civilians allowed,\u201d they repeat all day long, to anybody trying to enter.<\/p>\n

\nThe main road is closed, but two trucks carrying people and their belongings drive down a side road toward an adjacent neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\nAbu Khaled, an SDF field commander in charge of the area, tells AFP the road needs to be checked for ordnance before it can reopen.<\/p>\n

\nDaesh has often planted land mines before retreating, causing casualties among advancing SDF troops and returning civilians.<\/p>\n

\nBut these warnings do not deter residents like Abed.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019ll clear the mines ourselves,\u201d he says, still shouting. \u201cWe\u2019ve become experts. They tried all sorts of weapons on us… Just let us go home!\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSixty-year-old shepherd Aswad Al-Aysh is also defiant.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo problem, we\u2019ll get our sheep and make them walk in front of us,\u201d he quips, to show if there are mines.<\/p>\n

\nHis brother Abed Al-Ibrahim, who fled town with him a year ago, says the town\u2019s people need to return to their land.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhere else are we supposed to go?\u201d he asks quietly.<\/p>\n

\nHajjin was once a bustling Daesh hub, but today food is hard to come by, and the town\u2019s water and electricity networks have been ravaged in the fighting.<\/p>\n

\nAt the town\u2019s entrance, a young boy sells cigarette packs displayed on a broken table, while a man next to him peddles cans of fuel.<\/p>\n

\nAn armored vehicle pulls up, and an SDF fighter swings open its door to distribute small bottles of water, and children come running.<\/p>\n

\nAfter receiving his share, a young boy pleads for more.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGive me another one for Granny,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\nOn the banks of the Euphrates, trucks pump up water from the river before distributing it in the area.<\/p>\n

\nIn recent weeks, the SDF has cornered Daesh in a small patch of 4 sq km south down the river.<\/p>\n

\nThe SDF commander-in-chief last week said he expected Daesh to be flushed out within a month, before operations to root out any remaining sleeper cells.<\/p>\n

\nUnable to return to the Hajjin town center, residents are staying in a nearby village and commuting daily to see whether the SDF has lifted its ban.<\/p>\n

\nEven the town\u2019s mayor, Ali Jaber Ali, no longer lives there \u2014 though he says \u201cthere\u2019s nothing left of the town hall\u201d anyway.<\/p>\n

\nWith his destroyed home out of reach in central Hajjin, the 56-year-old is staying in the village of Abu Hamam.<\/p>\n

\nHe says he tried to convince the US-backed forces to let his people return.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere are no more sleeper cells\u201d here, he says he told them. \u201cI know every single one of the townspeople. We need to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nNear the town center, some residents are already rebuilding their homes.<\/p>\n

\nA woman wearing a face veil shovels debris off her porch while a man rebuilds a collapsed wall.<\/p>\n

\nWatching the scene, Amer Douda, 35, who hails from the cordoned-off area, is incensed.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t they open up the roads?\u201d he asks. \u201cWe\u2019re ready to go back and set up a tent amid the ruins.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey\u2019re scared of us, but we\u2019re a peaceful people. They should know that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAJJIN, Syria: In the former militant bastion of Hajjin in eastern Syria, 50-year-old Khaled Abed shouts at the top of his lungs amid the rubble, asking why he cannot go home. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled Daesh from the town last month, but it has since forbidden anyone from returning to its town…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}