When 18-year-old Omar al-Ghafi joined the peaceful anti-government protests in Darayya during the 2011 Arab Spring, he had no idea what would follow. During the brutal 13-year civil war that ensued, this suburb located just 30 minutes by car from Damascus city center witnessed horrific tragedies. Bashar al-Assad’s forces besieged the city for four years, indiscriminately bombed it, and tightly controlled the flow of aid to starve the rebels alongside the civilian population. In 2012, in what became known as the Darayya massacre, government forces killed more than 700 people over a period of two days.
‘’I was sitting at home when the bombing started, I remember it very well,’’ recalls Omar, now a 32-year-old taxi driver and father of one daughter. ‘’Bashar’s troops started bombing the main square in the city, and then the fighter jets began bombing two months later. They were searching houses and taking young men to detention centers, and faking terrorism charges against them. Many of my old friends from the revolution are missing.’’
The Syrian civil war had a devastating impact on the population. According to the United Nations, more than 13 million people have been displaced from their homes, and nearly 17 million need humanitarian assistance. Local government officials say Darayya’s population has declined from around 250,000 inhabitants before the war to just 100,000 in 2025. In other words, six out of 10 people have left the city.
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Omar is one of those who fled. In 2012, he fled to the nearby town of Sahnaya with his family. Driving around the city, he says he wants to move back. ‘’My house was not destroyed, but after Assad government finished the campaign, soldiers entered my home and stole everything,’’ he says. ‘’I miss the Darayya of my childhood.’’
The brutality of Assad’s military campaign left most of the country in ruins. In Darayya, it is nearly impossible to find any remaining buildings without bullet holes or debris. Many families still living in this suburb reside in half-collapsed structures without running water or electricity. In 2022, the World Bank estimated that the war had caused damages of up to $11.4 billion across Syria’s main population centers.
More than half of the country’s electricity grid is incapacitated, which has taken a devastating toll on 45-year-old Mohammed Mdour’s business. “I used to make my own nuts,” the shop owner says. “They were delicious, but now I have to buy them from elsewhere because I have no electricity to power the machine.”
Mohammed returned in 2018. “I tried to rebuild the shop on my own without any help,” he recalls. “When I returned, Assad’s soldiers came every week demanding bribes. I hope Darayya will become the most beautiful town again. We need time to rebuild the houses and restore essential services.”
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Despite Assad’s downfall in early December, Darayya remains a shadow of its former self. Mohammed’s nut shop stands as an oasis in an otherwise deserted neighborhood. He claims only 20 families now live in his area.
Husam Allaham, a local government official who fled to the northern rebel stronghold of Idlib in 2016, says Darayya’s population has “very little.” He recently return to Darayya to work with the new Syrian leadership. “There is water sometimes, but not always,” he explains. “Some people have to buy water from trucks. For electricity, we rely on batteries or solar panels. As you can see, we don’t even have mobile data.”
There is water sometimes, but not always.
At his new office in the city center, he says that removing the rubble, one of the most difficult tasks, will require the help of outside organizations. “The second thing is helping the families who lost their houses,” he adds. “[We need to] bring electricity, water, [and] cellular connection to the streets.”
Smaller, independent projects could help the reconstruction of some areas, Allaham continues, “but other places need major investment because they are completely destroyed. It is impossible without the help of international organizations or foreign governments.”
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Since the Assad regime’s collapse, diplomats from around the world have been traveling to Damascus to meet with Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani. Al-Sharaa, who led the rapid rebel offensive that ousted Assad, is now the president of the country’s interim government.
US President Joe Biden’s administration granted the new Syrian government a six-month sanction waiver for humanitarian purposes, but since Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, his administration has shown mixed signals. Marco Rubio, Trump’s new secretary of state, has insisted that Washington should go on backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led US ally that controls a region of northeastern Syria. The SDF allied with the US in its fight against the Islamic State militant group.
Now, though, the US Department of Defense is reportedly drafting plans to pull US troops out of Syria, echoing a threat Trump made in 2019 before ultimately backtracking. “Syria is its own mess,” Trump said at a press conference in late January. “They got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved in every one.”
Pointing back to 2019, Thomas Schmidinger, an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Kurdistan Hewler and the University of Vienna, says the world knows “how fast Trump is willing to sacrifice Syria.” Schmidinger adds, “They can’t rely on him. Any future policy on Syria is very unclear. However, the policy is not being made by Trump alone. There are other actors that can be more reliable like the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.”
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The US has lifted a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa. Yet, the UN Security Council, the European Union, and the US still classify Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the militia al-Sharaa led during the rebel offensive on Damascus, as a terrorist organization. In the meantime, the West seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach, meaning the bloc is ready to lift sanctions if the new Syrian administration undertakes positive developments such as respecting minorities and women’s rights.
At the same time, the Trump administration has paused all international aid for 90 days and plans to dismantle USAID, the main government agency providing humanitarian relief around the world. Even if sanctions go, that move would hinder reconstruction efforts. Elon Musk, now head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has gone so far as to claim on X that ‘’USAID is a criminal organization.’’
According to some estimates, it will take more than $250 billion to rebuild Syria. That sum roughly equals Greece’s annual GDP. “Syria needs a lot of investment to rebuild the country,” Schmidinger, the professor, says. “The Syrians cannot do it by themselves in the next few decades. A new sort of Marshall Plan is needed, with the help of Arab states, Turkey, Europe, and the US. Europe has a special interest [in stabilizing Syria] as many Syrian refugees are there, not in the US.”
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As high-level discussions about aid and sanctions continue, the people of Darayya have taken it upon themselves to rebuild their homes with whatever means they have. Husam Allaham says that more than 1,000 families have returned to the city in the last two months, and authorities expect more in the coming months.
Mazhar Mahmoud Alazab, a 68-year-old refugee, left Darayya for Lebanon in 2014. After more than a decade, he returned to Syria 10 days before the regime fell. “My house was completely destroyed,” he says, adding later: “My children returned here five years ago, and I came to visit them for the first time.”
Sitting in front of the carpentry shop his sons are rebuilding, he explains that he cried upon first returning to Darayya. “It is completely destroyed,” he says. “It is a bad feeling. We have a lot of people sleeping on the streets.”
Despite the harsh realities of living amid rubble with barely any services, Mazhar, like many of Darayya’s residents, is steadfast in staying to rebuild his hometown. “I am sure the new government will be better than Bashar,” he adds. “The main problem is electricity, but I am sure it will get better. It is our land; we are going to stay here. God willing, there is going to be a better future.”
