Displaced Syrians return to face daunting task of rebuilding homes and families

Geoff Bennett:

In Syria this week, civilians are finally returning home after nearly 14 years of civil war displaced millions and left the country both divided and destroyed, Assad regime checkpoints that used to sever any chance of seeing loved ones now gone like the government that manned them.

Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen spoke to families across that nation in Jobar, Homs, and the northwestern city of Azaz who are overjoyed to be reunited, but now face the daunting task of rebuilding their homes and their families.

Leila Molana-Allen:

The desolate wreckage that once was home. Bittersweet memories rise for every dusty track newly carved through the rubble.

As Syria's newfound freedom open up roads long blocked to most, Syrians are crossing the country in the thousands to return to homes they fled un der Assad's brutal bombardment that they thought they'd never see again.

Yasser Al Asali, Displaced Syrian (through interpreter):

My memories of this area are so beautiful, full of flowers and jasmine. It was more like heaven than Earth.

Leila Molana-Allen:

But what they find there brings it all back. Yasser Al Asali watched his beloved hometown of Jobar destroyed house by house a decade ago as they refused to surrender to regime forces.

Yasser Al Asali (through interpreter):

And here was my study where I used to read. This is the house I was raised in. My life is here and everything I have worked for. It's destroyed now.

Leila Molana-Allen:

His neighbors gone, his community torn apart, Yasser knows it will never be the same, but he wants to try.

Yasser Al Asali (through interpreter):

I want to rebuild it brick by brick. I just want to go back home. I swear to God I will get a tent and put it here on the rubble of my house.

Leila Molana-Allen:

As Yasser looks at the life he loved in pieces around him, he wonders why.

Yasser Al Asali (through interpreter):

They only wanted to be free, and the price was complete destruction, fires and savage killings everywhere. I don't really understand where this hatred comes from. We're all Syrians at the end.

Leila Molana-Allen:

These thriving Damascus suburbs used to be home to millions of people, but the Assad regime systematically targeted rebels and their families here with airstrikes, shelling and chemical weapons, eventually clearing them out. They're now free to come back, but, in this shattered wasteland, most of them don't have homes to return to.

Leaving Damascus to drive north to Homs, the highway is a patchwork of carnage, some former neighborhoods now little more than dust. Abandoned Syrian army tanks litter the road, scattered with remnants of the fallen regime. But now this road, once a feared path lined with risky checkpoints, teems with life, excited families heading home, rebel fighters reinforcing the country they now run.

In the wreckage of Homs city, a lone figure wanders. Mohammad is home after 12 long years. In this hollow shell where he was born and raised, he remembers how life gave way to fear and death at the hands of Assad's army.

Mohammad Rajoub, Displaced Syrian (through interpreter):

They used to kill whoever showed up in their path. I was even scared to send my children to the school, which was 65 feet away from the house. They used either airstrikes or snipers to hit us with no mercy at all.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Staying home didn't keep them safe. Two of Mohammed's children were killed by a barrel bomb in this house.

He's overjoyed to be back, but how could he even begin to rebuild?

Mohammad Rajoub (through interpreter):

When I came back home to my mother's house, I started crying. I remembered my childhood and school memories. Very few neighbors of mine are still alive. The rest are all gone.

Leila Molana-Allen:

His family, though, is still here.Whispered conversations kept short for fear of Syria's ever-present spy network are all that has kept them connected through these years.

Mohammad Rajoub (through interpreter):

I have relatives who I haven't spoken to for about 10 years. It was forbidden and all the calls were tracked. They arrested you if you said anything.

Leila Molana-Allen:

But now they're at liberty to reminisce together on the good times and the bad.

The children didn't understand what the sound was and they were trembling on the ground with fear. You said they were going crazy from the fear?

ARWA NAJJAR, Displaced Syrian (through interpreter):

When the bombing started suddenly, the kids would start crying hysterically. I felt so helpless. I wanted to protect them, but there was nothing I could do, so we'd cry with them.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Mohamed's sister-in-law Arwa came back to Homs after the initial bombardment, unable to afford life elsewhere. With three young children to raise, life under regime control and sanctions has been tough.

So the snipers, the army snipers, would stay on this roof and they would shoot at civilians in the streets.

Arwa Najjar (through interpreter):

Life was very hard. You couldn't move freely and everything was so expensive. I have a little girl and we had to spend days searching for milk and diapers.

Leila Molana-Allen:

She can hardly believe how much has changed in just a couple of weeks, the whole extended family reunited under one roof.

Arwa Najjar (through interpreter):

We're so happy. We couldn't believe it. When they arrived, we didn't even dare to come out to the balcony. We were asking, is our country really free now?

Leila Molana-Allen:

You can really see the damage on everything.

Arwa Najjar:

Yes, everywhere.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Arwa and her family rent a small apartment in the middle of a devastated street.

Arwa Najjar (through interpreter):

There's nowhere else for me to live.

Leila Molana-Allen:

But for many families who fled further north to rebel-held areas, even a house amidst the ruins is a distant dream.

Surviving this war in tents dotted across Northwest Syria has been the reality. We first met Ali and 7-year-old Mohammed in the Southern Turkish city of Gaziantep struggling through a yearslong wait for essential surgery unavailable in rebel-held Northwest Syria.

Separated from his mother and siblings for years as they remained behind, penniless in this displacement camp, Mohammed was lonely and miserable. But now there's no need to be far from home.

Ali Zakhour, Displaced Syrian (through interpreter):

Mohammed was so happy Syria was free. He told me, "I want to go see my mother and siblings,' and finally we were able to make it.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Miriam still didn't believe they'd be allowed to cross. Suddenly,

Miriam Zakhour, Mother of Displaced Syrian (through interpreter): Suddenly, they opened the door and it was unbelievable to see them after two years of waiting. When Mohammed first arrived, he ran towards me and hugged me tightly and couldn't get enough of kissing me. He was hugging everyone and playing with them. He's so happy.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Ali says Mohammed's demeanor has changed completely since they came home. The shy, fearful boy who longed for companionship runs and plays with his two little sisters, delighting in squeezing the cheeks of his baby cousins.

Mohammed still has 10 more difficult surgeries ahead of him. But now the checkpoints carving up Syria are gone. He can stay at home and undergo his operations at a nearby hospital in Aleppo.

Miriam Zakhour (through interpreter):

He tells me: "Mom, the doctor will transplant my hair and eyebrows and fix my hands." He became happy, and I was happy too, because before he would tell me how kids were making fun of him. But it's not the same with his siblings. He loves playing with them.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Where that home will be is the next question. Their house in Aleppo was destroyed in the airstrike that burned Mohammed five years ago. So, like so many here who fled, the road is finally open, but there's nowhere to go.

The family has a mountain to climb to restore Mohammed's health and build a new life. But now they will climb it together.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Azaz, Northern Syria.