Raqqa City: A Victim of Self-Funded Repairs

After the administration of Raqqa city was transferred to Syria’s transitional authorities in January, urban challenges that had accumulated over the past years became evident. Residents had been relying on themselves to repair their homes, while construction expanded onto agricultural land outside the zoning plan, and informal building was on the rise. Amid damaged infrastructure, the emergence of informal settlements, and the discovery of tunnels within inhabited neighbourhoods, the city’s new administration faces the task of regulating the existing urban fabric and setting out a clear reconstruction plan.

Immediately after the Syrian Democratic Forces’ withdrawal, the transitional administration appointed AbdulRahman Salameh as governor of Raqqa, along with deputies and executive directors to implement his decisions. However, members of the governorate council and the executive office have not yet been appointed. The transitional administration also appointed Shahoud AbdulAziz as head of the city council, though no decision has been issued appointing the council members.

Since the fall of Assad’s regime at the end of 2024, no elections have been held at the municipal or governorate level, and the transitional administration appoints all officials and employees across local administrations.

In January, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) withdrew from Raqqa city, which had been run by the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) for the past eight years. This came amid military confrontations and political agreements, most notably the January 10 agreement between the SDF and the transitional government’s forces, which led to the SDF’s withdrawal from the entire Raqqa governorate. The SDF had entered Raqqa at the end of 2017, with air support from the US-led International Coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS), following battles that lasted nearly two years. The city had fallen into the hands of ISIS in 2014, after battles with armed opposition factions, becoming the first major city the group controlled in Syria.

These successive military and administrative changes were reflected directly in the city’s urban fabric. In 2017, Raqqa was subjected to intensive coalition airstrikes that led to widespread destruction estimated at around 80 per cent of its housing. Since then, residents have been repairing their homes at their own expense, with limited support from humanitarian organisations.

Neighbourhoods close to the centre of Raqqa’s old city, such as Al-Maamoun, Al-Mansour, Al-Mahdi, Al-Badu, and Al-Dariyya, are among the most damaged neighbourhoods. Repair activity in these neighbourhoods is limited because of the extensive destruction.

Meanwhile, the neighbourhoods of Al-Ramila, Al-Rashidiya, Al-Mashlab, Al-Rumaniya, Hittin, Al-Qadisiyah, and Al-Yarmouk were less damaged and witnessed major repair activity during the period of AANES control. These self-funded repairs took place without a comprehensive reconstruction plan led by an official body, and in many cases without regulatory oversight, which led to widespread illegal construction practices.

Informal settlements have also appeared in recent years on the city’s eastern and western outskirts. These areas were originally farmland; at first, informal camps were set up there, before unlicensed homes were built. These new informal settlements lack services such as sewage, water, and electricity, and their homes severely lack structural safety standards.

Mohammad Al-Salameh, the head of the Engineers’ Syndicate in Raqqa, told The Syria Report that residents’ reliance on themselves to repair their homes left many of them vulnerable to exploitation by real-estate traders. A number of owners sold their flats at low prices because they could not bear the costs of repair or rebuilding. Some real-estate traders bought severely damaged homes in a practice locally known as “selling air,” meaning the trader purchases a heavily damaged home, repairs or rebuilds it, and then resells it at market prices. The neighbourhoods of Al-Ramila, Al-Mansour, and Al-Qitar saw a concentration of this type of unlicensed repair, which in turn lacks engineering standards for structural safety.

At the same time, there is still no accurate number of damaged homes within the neighbourhoods. The absence of an updated database on the city’s urban situation, despite years having passed since the end of the major battles there, limits the new municipal authorities’ ability to set planning policies.

Infrastructure in Raqqa city remains widely damaged, and according to the director of technical affairs in the city council, Walid Al-Ahmad, sewage networks and other service facilities are completely destroyed and need rehabilitation. Mr Ahmad estimated the cost of rehabilitating the city’s main roads at around USD 42 million.

Rubble remains a major issue in Raqqa, and work to remove it began in 2018 with assistance from the US Agency for International Development from the main streets in the neighbourhoods of Al-Mansour, Twenty-three, Al-Ramila, and Al-Rashidiya.

The problem of tunnels dug during the years of the Islamic State group’s control has emerged. According to Al-Ahmad, tunnels have been discovered at 30 sites inside the city, including sites within residential neighbourhoods. Fifty tunnel openings have been documented, some of them five to six metres deep. The presence of these tunnels within inhabited areas poses risks to existing buildings, especially in light of repair and construction carried out in recent years without organised engineering supervision.

Meanwhile, construction in agricultural areas surrounding Raqqa continues, despite those areas not being part of the city’s 2009 zoning plan. According to Mr Ahmad, the city’s area under that zoning plan is around 2,400 hectares, while its area alongside those unregulated extensions reaches around 3,000 hectares. He explained that the current city council will conduct a study to expand and update the zoning plan in line with the changes the city has undergone over the past years, especially urban expansion into agricultural land.