rubble_removal – Syria Report

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Building Collapses, Killing Seven, During Looting in Damascus Suburb

17-01-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Seven people were killed on November 2, 2022, when a four-storey building collapsed in the Rural Damascus governorate city of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. The victims had been there to extract iron from the damaged building’s columns and roof in order to loot and recycle it. This illicit business–the rubble trade–appears to be attracting new companies as it enjoys military and security protection.

Al-Hajar Al-Aswad is a city and administrative centre of a district within the Rural Damascus governorate, and sits adjacent to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. Before 2011, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad had about half a million residents and was known as host to the largest number of Golan Heights residents who had been displaced by the June 1967 war. Much of the city consists of informal housing that was never properly zoned or serviced, and which became destinations for low-income Syrians coming to the capital region from other parts of the country.

The city faced massive wartime damage when the opposition controlled it from 2012 to 2015, and again during the period of Islamic State control in 2015-2018. Regime forces regained control of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad in 2018 after an airstrikes and artillery campaign that destroyed entire neighbourhoods and forcibly displaced any remaining residents.

November’s collapsed building was located in Al-Jazeereh neighbourhood in the northwestern part of the city. Severe damage to that neighbourhood has prevented residents from returning to it. The Rural Damascus governorate has previously allowed conditional returns for residents of the city’s Tishreen and Al-Thawra neighbourhoods, which are considered safely inhabitable. However, according to The Syria Report’s correspondent in the area, only 150 out of thousands who applied were permitted to return.

Pro-regime media reported that the head of the local council of Al-Hajjar Al-Aswad had denied there were any casualties in the building collapse. Rather, he stated that the building was uninhabited and there were only material damages. The reason behind his denial could be that Al-Jazeereh neighbourhood is still uninhabited and returns are not allowed, making it difficult to explain any deaths without acknowledging the looting operations.

However, eyewitnesses confirmed to The Syria Report that the building collapsed while looters were breaking apart the roof to extract iron rebar. A woman and a 16-year-old boy were among the dead, while the rest were members of a family from Al-Jumlan tribe, which hails from East Ghouta.

A work crew from the Rural Damascus governorate came to the scene of the collapsed building equipped with heavy machinery, spending two days searching the rubble for bodies. Personnel from Al-Hajjar Al-Aswad police station and Military Security branch, which controls the area, prevented people from getting near the site.

One Al-Hajar Al-Aswad resident told The Syria Report that they saw large trucks removing debris extracted from the city’s damaged buildings on more than one occasion. Those trucks passed through security checkpoints without objections, The Syria Report’s correspondent added.

Regime forces closed off the entrances to Al-Hajjar Al-Aswad with dirt mounds in 2018, though one entrance from Al-Thalatheen Street was kept open. This entrance is overseen by two checkpoints that closely inspect anyone who has been permitted to pass through.

According to The Syria Report’s correspondent, the looting crews are given security permissions by the army’s Fourth Division. These permissions allow the crews to enter Al-Hajar Al-Aswad for work. The looting crews collect the rubble in certain locations of the city, where rubble dealers then go purchase it. The most important material for sale is iron, which is transported via trucks to furnaces to be recycled.

Syrian Company for Metals and Investments

The Syria Report’s correspondent cited sources in Al-Hajjar Al-Aswad who said some of those trucks belong to the Syrian Company for Metals and Investments, whose articles of association had been approved by the Decision No. 3061/2018 of the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection. Under Decision No. 3061, it has the right to import and export all types of metals, iron, plastics and aluminium, as well as sort and transport rubble, trade construction and cladding materials and cement, in addition to other activities.

The Syria Report could not independently confirm whether the rubble trucks indeed belonged to this company.

Government Approaches Rubble Recycling as Merely Technical Issue

06-12-2022/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

In an interview with semi-official news outlet Al-Watan on November 9, Fatima Al-Saleh –the director of Syria’s project to reuse the rubble of buildings in the production of concrete and other building materials – provided information on recycling rubble from a merely technical and economic perspective without relating it to housing, land, and property rights.

The rubble reuse project is a research endeavour funded by the Scientific Research and Technical Support Fund at the Ministry of Higher Education. It resulted from a 2016 agreement between the Ministry of Higher Education and the State Ministry for Environmental Affairs, which later merged with the Ministry of Local Administration. The project includes 14 researchers from the University of Aleppo and Aleppo city’s Environment Department. It aims to put a scale for classifying the types of stones found in rubble according to their physical and mechanical characteristics. These stones can then go towards various engineering uses. The project also includes designing different concrete, asphalt and construction block mixes and finding any insulation materials using recycled rubble. According to Al-Saleh, so far, the project has succeeded in studying the concrete slabs resulting from reusing bits of rubble for construction blocks.

However, in reality, only one small experiment has so far taken place, in the Al-Ramouseh area of Aleppo, according to Al-Saleh. The experiment was held with funding from the UNDP, the Syria Trust for Development, the Aleppo City Council and the Spanish NGO Rescate.

The experiment included transporting, breaking down and sorting rubble to extract possible materials for use in cement construction blocks. The UN Development Fund covered costs, including paying for workers, transport and equipment for breaking down and sorting the rubble. According to official statements, this equipment included 12 tractor-trailers, two trucks, a stone crusher and sorter and 12 cement block pressers.

In March 2019, the Aleppo City Council told the state-owned news outlet SANA that the experiment was a success, resulting in a project yet to construct 8,000 cement blocks. The council president added at the time that international donors provided the equipment needed for the project on the basis that it be given to the city council afterwards. According to him, municipal workers were being trained to continue the project.

According to Al-Saleh, this “success” led to a similar new project in Deir-ez-Zor, with international support. She did not provide any further details.

In 2019, the Rescate NGO supervised rehabilitating 128 apartments in the Al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, with funding from UNOCHA and implementation by the Diari company. Then in December 2021, Rescate oversaw preparation work on the popular Deir Hafer Souk in rural Aleppo in coordination with the Syria Trust for Development, the Aleppo governorate and the Deir Hafer City Council.

Al-Saleh stressed in her interview that recycling rubble is the best choice, while simply disposing it is costly. According to her, carrying out the recycling work in the same place is optimal, though it is still economically feasible to transport the rubble to other stations for recycling. She added that buildings now at risk of collapse could serve as clean rubble with high payoffs, though she didn’t clarify what she meant by “contaminated” rubble, which she said should be discarded.

Donors also obtained approval from the Prime Ministry to construct a rubble recycling station in Aleppo city, Al-Saleh said, but added that the project “had been halted.” She did not clarify who had funded or halted the project.

According to Al-Saleh, a green recovery project will soon be launched. The project will employ people wounded in the war to produce materials from the rubble “with high profitability and economic and social sustainability”. It is unclear what precisely the UNESCWA-supervised project will entail, and the plan does not mention Syria except to say that the Syrian government has committed to fight against desertification.

Meanwhile, Al-Saleh did not reference the most critical issue regarding the rubble: who owns it and who gets compensation for it. Law No. 3 of 2018, which addresses the removal of rubble resulting from natural or unnatural causes (or from laws stipulating demolition), gave only the owners of demolished properties the right to its monetary value. However, the law left it to local administrative units to determine that value after selling the rubble in public auctions or recycling it and deducing it from demolition costs.

Have Displaced Residents Returned to Maaret Al-Numan?

25-10-2022/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

On October 15, pro-regime media reported that 800 displaced families had returned to Maaret Al-Numan, located in the rural Idlib governorate. A ceremony was reportedly held for their return, attended by state and Baath Party officials. But when the ceremony ended, most returning families left the destroyed city, according to a correspondent for The Syria Report in the area, as extensive damage to homes and infrastructure has rendered Maaret Al-Numan uninhabitable.

Maaret Al-Numan is located in the southern part of Idlib and is the governorate’s second-largest city after its eponymous capital. Opposition forces held the city from 2012-2020. During this time, some residents moved to live in regime-held areas in the nearby coastal governorates and Hama. Then in 2020, the regime waged a military campaign on the southern part of Idlib governorate, regaining control over several major cities such as Saraqeb and Maaret Al-Numan. The campaign caused all remaining residents of Maaret Al-Numan to flee north to displacement camps in opposition-held territory.

Since then, the pro-Russia 25th Special Mission Forces Division has controlled the emptied-out city, running it as a military zone because of its proximity to lines of contact with rebel forces in the southern Idlib governorate. The division has barred displaced Maaret Al-Numan residents from returning home to the city, even those living in regime-controlled areas of Syria. As in other areas of rural southern Idlib, work crews contracted by the regime forces have looted homes in Maaret Al-Numan, extracting whatever materials they could recycle, such as iron roofing.

According to The Syria Report’s correspondent, the Idlib governorate had transported displaced Maaret Al-Numan residents who gathered in Al-Assi Square in the city of Hama to their home city to participate in the return ceremony on October 15. Most of the families included Baath Party members and army personnel.

The Idlib governor and Idlib’s Baath Party branch leader participated in the ceremony, which was meant to open what they called a “reception centre for citizens returning to the city of Maaret Al-Numan.” They said the centre was opened to ease the return of the city’s displaced residents. A Syria Report correspondent reported that one of the centre’s tasks is to grant returnees security approvals after settling their security and military conscription statuses.

The governor said those wishing to return and live in the city could visit the reception centre and apply for return. He added that the centre will collect data on those people before approving them return. This data, he said, is necessary to secure essential services for returnees.

During the ceremony on October 15, the governorate utilised heavy machinery to remove rubble and clear public roads under the supervision of the 25th Special Mission Forces Division. However, according to The Syria Report’s correspondent, the day’s rubble removal was merely propaganda to shoot a promotional video and halted immediately afterwards.

A large-scale return of residents to Maaret Al-Numan does not yet appear possible amid the sheer destruction to the city, including to its water, sewage and electrical networks, as well as the remaining rubble and other debris.

On October 19, a government delegation visited the city. The group included the Minister of Local Administration and Environment and the Minister of Public Works and Housing. Official media reported that the delegation viewed the city’s situation and oversaw the restoration of essential services, rubble removal and repair of damaged roads. The delegation reportedly also identified and estimated the scope of the damages and determined the city’s most urgent needs to facilitate the return of displaced residents to their homes.

According to official statements, electricity will likely not return to the city before the end of 2022. Schools must also undergo repairs before reopening. The water network needs testing to find any defects, as facilities were damaged and shut down for long periods due to the fighting.

During the delegation’s visit to Maaret Al-Numan, the governor of Idlib stated that he had sent a memorandum to the council of ministers that included a study on requirements for restoring services such as electricity, water and healthcare to the city. The governor added that the services will be restored once the necessary funding is allocated.

Officials from Baath Party and Idlib governorate held a meeting on October 9 in Hama alongside Maaret Al-Numan private economic actors, to encourage the latter to participate in efforts to restore the city’s infrastructure and public facilities. Afterwards, the “Committee to Facilitate the Return of Maaret Al-Numan Residents,” formed by the Idlib branch of the Baath Party, worked to collect donations of supplies and money to encourage displaced residents of the city to return home. For example, one businessperson donated a heater for each family that wishes to return to Maaret Al-Numan, while another gave SYP 1 million per family. Another person promised to remove rubble from local homes should the owners return.