Explained: Erased Neighbourhoods and Unrecovered Property in Hama

The end of Baath Party rule has made it possible, for the first time in 43 years, to speak publicly about the Hama massacre, carried out in 1982 by regime forces. The effects of the massacre were not limited to bombardment, killings, and displacement, but extended to the confiscation of property, the alteration of the old city’s layout, and the denial of thousands of families from returning to or rebuilding their homes.

Injustice accumulated in the memory of the city and its people through meagre or non-existent compensation policies, mass expropriation decisions, and failed urban projects that paved the way for corruption and discrimination in housing redistribution. While the old neighbourhoods became official property or have remained empty land to this day, many of their former residents remain without shelter or live in temporary housing that bears no resemblance to their original homes – known for their traditional Arab architecture.

The city of Hama is divided in two by the Orontes River – these two sectors are known locally as Al-Hadir and Al-Souq. Al-Hadir refers to the large market in the north of the city, a name that came to include the surrounding residential area. These neighbourhoods were known for their traditional Arab-style homes. Generations of residents worked in the production and trade of dairy products, fabrics, and handicrafts – making them the beating heart of the city that was entirely uprooted during the massacre.

The systematic destruction focused on the Al-Hadir area, which constitutes nearly half the city and includes the old neighbourhoods of Hama, such as Al-Kaylania, Al-Baroudia, as well as Al-Zanbaqi, Al-Asida, Al-Basateen, Al-Shamalia, and Al-Sharqia. Artillery shelling also struck parts of the market, particularly Bustan Al-Saada and Souq Al-Najjareen. The Kaylania neighbourhood, the oldest in Al-Hadir, suffered the most bombardment due to its domed structures and narrow alleys, which the regime forces deemed suitable for armed rebels of the Muslim Brotherhood to hide, making it a direct target of intense shelling.

The heavy bombardment caused near-total destruction of the residential and commercial infrastructure. What was not destroyed by shelling was later deliberately demolished. According to local estimates – since no official statistics exist – the death toll ranged between 20,000 and 30,000, with victims killed either by shelling or field executions. About 700 families, or nearly 30,000 people, were displaced, while tens of thousands were subjected to arbitrary arrest and forced disappearance.

In Al-Baroudia, Masaad Ashour recounts the days his family endured under siege during the massacre.  He described their Arab-style home, about 600 square metres in size, as a palace. The family remained trapped in the house for several days until the wooden upper floor was shelled, igniting fires throughout the house. On the fifth day, the family – eight children and four adults -decided to flee, leaving behind the grandmother, who could not move quickly. They took refuge in a nearby house less than 100 metres away, which sheltered several other families, but their father, Haj Mahmoud, was shot by a sniper while attempting to return and rescue his mother.

“We went from fire to fire, but had no other choice—everyone in the area was besieged,” Mr Ashour said. The artillery was targeting the entire neighbourhood, and the level of destruction surrounding them was shocking, far exceeding what they could have imagined, he added.

After the massacre ended, the need for reconstruction was urgent. The state opened compensation claims a few months later, a process that lasted several years. In many cases, the situation was further complicated by the fact that male family members – whose names were typically listed on property deeds – had been killed or had fled, making access to compensation or property restoration even more difficult. However, compensation was generally meagre and did not come close to covering the losses. Sometimes, compensation amounted to as little as half a Syrian pound per square metre. Even so, a municipal employee told The Syria Report that while compensation “wasn’t bad in principle,” very little was actually paid to victims, with the excuse that the municipality lacked sufficient financial allocations.

Compensation values were determined by municipal valuation committees and real estate experts based on the value of the structure on the land, rather than the property’s pre-destruction worth. As a result, thousands of families who lost homes and businesses could not recover their losses. Many received no compensation at all – like Masaad Ashour’s family. Many other families faced the same fate, with their lands remaining undeveloped or unrepaired to this day.

Hakam Abdul Razzaq told The Syria Report about his grandfather’s house in Al-Zanbaqi, which was completely destroyed and later became the site of a police headquarters. Three years after the massacre, the family was informed of financial compensation from the municipality—but it totalled no more than SYP 1,000 (around USD 22) for a 500-square-metre house, a meagre sum by the standards of the time. Fortunately, Mr Razzaq’s family had another house to move into. 

Other families that after losing their houses were forced to rent a home, had to pay between SYP100 and SYP150 per month, when the average government salary was no more than SYP250.

In 1986, four years after the massacre,  the Council of Ministers issued Decision No. 2462 stipulating the mass expropriation of most of the old and historic neighbourhoods of Hama affected by the destruction, under Expropriation Law No. 20 of 1983. The decision came as part of a “general file,” without the usual justification. Under it, the state seized ownership of a large number of residential and commercial properties, including those destroyed in the massacre, without allocating them for public benefit.

Al-Kaylania and Al-Zanbaqi (Real Estate Zone One) were among the most affected areas. Their urban zoning plans were modified to include administrative and government facilities, such as the Afamia Hotel (later sold to businessman Othman Al-Aidi), Baath Party branches, police headquarters, state agencies, research centres, and buildings for the National Progressive Front parties. Meanwhile, vast areas of Al-Zanbaqi and old Al-Baroudia have remained entirely undeveloped to this day – except for one school, built through local community effort rather than state funding.

To rebuild the devastated areas, then-President Hafez Al-Assad issued a decision to form the Organisation and Reconstruction Committee (Committee No. 507), tasked with creating a housing district on the city outskirts named the Abi Al-Fida Suburb. The plan was to provide about 5,000 apartments for families whose homes were destroyed in the massacre. The distribution of these housing units also raises questions about whether female-headed households – especially those from second or third marriages, or those without formal HLP claims – were considered at all, despite often being the only surviving members tied to the original properties. But only about 3,400 units were built, most allocated to social, employee, and worker housing for state employees through labour unions and to members of security and military agencies. In 2009, the committee was dissolved without official explanation. A former Hama city council member said it was due to a “lack of genuine interest in completing construction in the destroyed areas.” Thus, Abi Al-Fida Suburb transformed from a project to rehouse victims into yet another tool to exclude them from their city, while their original lands, destroyed during the massacre, were left out of any serious reconstruction or return plans.

In 2000, shortly after inheriting the presidency, Bashar Al-Assad visited Hama. In his meeting with residents, the first demand raised was to lift the expropriation imposed by the 1986 decision, which had included most of the damaged old city neighbourhoods. In response, Presidential Decree No. 123 was issued, lifting the expropriation on those areas. But the decree had no practical effect on the ground. By then, the land was already occupied by official buildings such as the Hama Police Branch, Baath Party headquarters, and other government institutions, making it virtually impossible to return the land to its original owners.

According to the municipal employee speaking to The Syria Report, the decree was rendered meaningless and provided no benefit to residents; instead, it added to the chaos. The expropriated land remained inaccessible to its owners. Many returned to find their former homes turned into official premises that could not be reclaimed, while other areas remained vacant and without any initiative to return them or rebuild them fairly.

Beyond statistics, testimonies, and policies, the greatest loss for Hama’s residents has been the erosion of their sense of belonging and stability, after being stripped of their homes and neighbourhood memories.  “They erased the area from our memory and didn’t let us feel the joy of being in our homes,” Mr Razzaq said. These words reflect the dual erasure suffered by Hama’s old quarters – both physical and symbolic. The policies following the massacre were not just about destruction, but about draining these places of meaning, converting them into official compounds or abandoned spaces devoid of their rightful owners. The issue was not merely the loss of a house, but the loss of work, community ties, and the social fabric linking neighbourhoods and their inhabitants: the collective memory held in these spaces.

As a result, tens of thousands of survivors have lived in a state of perpetual displacement – between rented homes that bear no resemblance to their originals, lands on the city outskirts, or in anticipation of reconstruction that never came. Hama’s once-bustling markets, Arab-style homes, and lively neighbourhoods have been consigned to ruin and oblivion, while their rightful owners remain denied the simplest of rights: return or fair compensation. The Hama massacre was not just a catastrophic event in the city’s history, it marked the beginning of decades of systematic exclusion.