It is over a year since Bashar al-Assad’s regime, with the help of Russian air strikes and barrel bombs, pounded the rebel-held east of Aleppo into submission. Buildings were flattened, those who survived were left terrorised, hungry and filled with despair, and the stench of dead bodies rose up from the rubble as families searched for their loved ones. The Syrian government has been trying to rebuild Aleppo since recapturing the city in December 2016 destroyed buildings in Aleppo’s northwest Layramoun industrial district on July 5, 2017. Six months after Syria’s army captured the country’s one-time economic powerhouse, dozens of manufacturers with small and medium-sized factories are cautiously returning to the city’s east, once a stronghold of opposition fighters. Syria’s conflict has ravaged the country’s economy since it began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, before spiralling into a complex war that has killed over 320,000 people.

Source: Egypt Independent January 20, 2018 12:22 UTC