(2 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Homs, Syria – 1 January 2025
1. Various drone shots of destroyed buildings ++MUTE++
2. Homs resident Ziad Najjar entering his destroyed building
3. Drone shot of destroyed building ++MUTE++
4. Najjar walking inside his destroyed building
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ziad Najjar, Homs resident:
"Walls, windows and doors are destroyed, we had permission to return but there was an engineer in the fourth division (Maher Assad’s division) who did not allow us. He asked me to get an order from His Excellency the President. I told him I could not, and to give me his number if he could. Anyway, people were arguing with him, but he did not respond to any of them. He brought the ceiling cutting machines and destroyed them and took the iron bars. All this destruction is being done by the Fourth Division for the sake of iron bars."
6. Damaged buildings seen from inside a building
7. Various of bulldozer removing debris
8. Homs resident Khaled Sahloul fixing his house
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Sahloul, Homs resident:
"Our neighborhood was near the market. At the beginning of the noble revolution there was a curfew, and no one could get out of his house. So, we were forced to go from one area to another, from one alley to another, so we could go out and bring food. When the protests were going from the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque towards the market, we were in the crossfire between the regime’s militias and the rebels. Our street was full of militias.”
10. Sahloul with his friend
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Sahloul, resident:
"In 2012, we left this neighborhood. The house was like a hostel for the family, it was a historic house. I hope we would restore it like before and even better."
12. Sahloul inside his house
13. Debris of buildings
14. Boy making victory sign amid destroyed buildings
STORYLINE:
The Syrian civil war has left massive destruction in some neighborhoods of the city of Homs, turning it into a desolate and lifeless wasteland.
Huge numbers of buildings were destroyed during the war as former President Bashar Assad’s forces deliberately destroyed buildings and sold its iron bars.
Ziad Najjar, a bricks and marble factory owner was one of those who left the city of Homs in 2012 to live in the countryside. When his neighborhood was controlled by the former army, they did not allow him to return and restore his apartment in his family’s building.
“There was an engineer in the fourth division (Maher Assad’s division) who did not allow us, he asked me to get an order from His Excellency the President," said Najjar.
He added that he found his apartment without walls, windows and doors and that the Fourth Division troops destroyed the ceilings and the columns to sell the iron bars.
Homs has been the center of the Syrian revolution since its beginning. Several neighborhoods have been under siege and under heavy bombardment for years.
Khaled Sahloul used to live near the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque neighborhood. He was forced to leave as his house was in the crossfire between Assad’s forces and the Syrian opposition rebels.
His house was a historic one and his family is now trying to restore it to its former glory.
Homs is considered the third largest city in Syria. It is one of the most strategic cities in Syria, serving as a vital hub for energy resources.
AP Video by Ghaith Alsayed
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/2300086532024fd9b4be2f19c1307b47
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in January 7, 2025, 6:04 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
