Return of life back to Homs Old City

It is estimated that more than 250,000 Syrians have died since civil war broke out in the country five years ago. Another seven million are displaced. The United Nations and other world organizations say the crisis has set Syria’s development status back by four decades. While more than four million people have left Syria for other countries, those that remain hope to one day see their country at peace and thriving. Since the agreement of an uneasy truce between Syrian rebels and the government in December, former residents of Homs, the country’s third largest city, have started to return. They have been met with scenes of utter devastation, but are determined to rebuild their damaged homes and reclaim their lives despite continuing outbreaks of unrest in the city. Today more than 20 percent of the displaced people have returned to their neighborhoods in Homs Old City and 60 percent of the services in the domain of water and electricity have been rehabilitated while the execution rate of the sewage system has reached 100 percent. The considerable execution rate in the aforementioned spheres came as a result of the relentless efforts exerted by the public institutions and companies to provide the basic services to the citizens who returned to the city and to provide the suitable circumstances for the displaced to return. With the beginning of the current school year, five schools returned to work in Homs Old City and today four others are being rehabilitated to return to work in the beginning of the next academic year.