Aleppo rebuilding no mean task

MIDNIGHT means lights out in Syria’s Aleppo: as the clock strikes 12, overworked power generators shut off across the city, plunging war-ravaged neighborhoods and heritage sites into darkness. It will take many months and millions of dollars to breathe life back into Aleppo’s devastated water, electricity, and transportation networks. Four years of fighting have transformed it from Syria’s industrial and commercial powerhouse to a divided and dysfunctional city. “We sold our vacuum cleaner — what’s the point in having one if we don’t have electricity?” asked Umm Fayez, a housewife who lives in the central district of Furqan. “It’s been two years since we used our washing machine. We wash everything by hand, but the water is too cold now and I can’t take it any more,” the mother-of-two told AFP, sitting in the dark amid piles of dirty laundry. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad declared full control over Syria’s second city last week, after a landmark evacuation deal ended years of clashes. Rocket fire, airstrikes and shelling partly or totally destroyed more than half Aleppo’s infrastructure and buildings, according to a “preliminary, optimistic evaluation” by local authorities. Water shortages The main power station at Safirah to the southeast has been off line for two years because of the fighting. Aleppo’s residents are forced to rely on noisy generators that supply electricity through a web of thick cables snaking through scarred streets. But they are shut down at midnight to save diesel supplies. Umm Fayez’s husband walks home every night from his sweetshop using a small torch to guide the way through pitch-black darkness. “We have two projects that will re-establish electricity to Aleppo,” an electricity ministry official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said new power lines would be laid from the neighboring province of Hama within a year, but that it would cost more than four billion Syrian pounds, or about $8 million (7.6 million euros). Residents are also impatient for water shortages to end, with the main pumping station currently operating at just a third of its capacity. “We can only pump water to 20 percent of Aleppo. Before the crisis, it was 70 percent,” said Issa Korj, chief mechanic at the Suleiman Al-Halabi water plant. He said it would take “many months” to repair the facility, but even then, water provision was likely to remain a problem for residents. Most of the water pumped to Aleppo comes from the Euphrates Dam in the adjacent province of Raqa, which is held by Daesh (the so-called IS) militant group. “They regularly cut off the water,” said Fakher Hamdo, who heads Aleppo’s water administration. He added that global economic sanctions imposed on Syria since 2011 make spare parts nearly impossible to import. But before any major rebuilding projects can begin, local authorities must clear away barricades and sand berms that had divided Aleppo between the rebel-controlled east and the government-held west. Bulldozers can already be seen in the bombed-out streets, clearing rubble and dismantling metal barriers. Russia and Turkey seek to craft ceasefire in Syria RUSSIA and Turkey are seeking a nationwide truce plan for Syria, but there was no confirmation of a deal Thursday, as the incoming UN chief warned the conflict had become a global “cancer”. The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Wednesday that Moscow and Ankara had agreed to expand a ceasefire in second city Aleppo to the whole country, but none of the key players have confirmed the report. The Aleppo truce was brokered by Turkey and Russia earlier this month to allow the evacuation of civilians and was hailed as a major turning point in the nearly six-year war. The incoming UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told Portuguese TV the conflict had become “a cancer on a global scale”, urging Washington and Moscow to overcome their differences to end the crisis. Anadolu said that if successful the latest proposal would form the basis of political negotiations between Damascus and the opposition overseen by Russia and Turkey in the Kazakh capital Astana. Ankara has hosted a series of closed-door talks between Russia and Syrian opposition rebels in recent weeks. The Al-Jazeera news channel said a new meeting was planned on Thursday in Ankara, this time between Syrian rebels, Turkey and Russia. Ankara and Moscow have been on opposing sides in Syria’s war, with Turkey seeking the removal of President Bashar Al-Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran. But they have recently started to cooperate more closely on Syria, especially after a deal to normalise ties battered by Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian warplane last year. Turkey remained conspicuously quiet as Assad’s forces, backed by Russia, took control last week of Aleppo in the biggest rebel defeat so far. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no reference to the ceasefire plan in a speech on Wednesday, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not have enough information to comment. — AFP