Nostalgia, relief and loss as some Syrians mark their first Ramadan back home in years

DARAYA, Syria (news agencies) — When Mariam Aabour learned of the ouster of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, she shed tears of joy. But as the time came to return to her homeland from Lebanon – where she fled years earlier – Aabour felt torn.

She was happy about the homecoming, but sad to leave behind a son and a stepson who remained in Lebanon to work and pay off family debts. Months before her return, Aabour’s father died in Syria without her seeing him. Her Syrian home has been destroyed and there’s no money to rebuild, she said.

Thus it’s been bittersweet experiencing her first Ramadan – the Muslim holy month – since her return.

“We’ve all lost dear ones,” she said. “Even after our return, we still cry over the tragedies that we’ve lived through.”

As they spend their first Ramadan in years in their homeland, many Syrians who’ve recently trickled back in from abroad have been celebrating the end of the Assad family’s rule in December after a fast-paced rebel offensive. They are relishing some new freedoms and savoring some old traces of the lives they once knew.

They enjoy family reunions but many also face challenges as they adjust to a country ravaged by a prolonged civil war and now grappling with a complex transition. As they do, they grieve personal and communal losses: Killed and missing loved ones, their absence amplified during Ramadan. Destroyed or damaged homes. And family gatherings shattered by the exodus of millions.

A time for daily fasting and heightened worship, Ramadan also often sees joyous get-togethers with relatives over food and juices.

Aabour – one of the more than 370,000 Syrians the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, says have returned to the country since Assad’s ouster – delights in hearing the call to prayer from mosques signaling the end of the daily fast. In her Lebanon neighborhood, she said, there were no nearby mosques and she relied on phones to know when to break the fast.

The hardest part, she added, is sitting for the fast-breaking meal known as “iftar” without some loved ones, including her father and a son, who she said was killed before the family fled Syria.

She bitterly recalled how her child, who she said was about 10 when killed, liked a rice and peas dish for iftar and would energetically help her, carrying dishes from the kitchen.

“I used to tell him, ‘You’re too young,’ but he would say, ‘No, I want to help you,’” she said, sitting on the floor in her in-laws’ house which her family now shares with relatives.

Faraj al-Mashash, her husband, said he’s not currently working, accumulating more debt and caring for an ill father.

The family borrowed money to fix his father’s home in Daraya. It was damaged and looted, but still standing.

Many Daraya homes aren’t.

Part of Rural Damascus and known for its grapes and its furniture workshops, Daraya was one of the centers of the uprising against Assad. The conflict devolved into armed insurgency and civil war after Assad crushed what started as largely peaceful protests; this Ramadan, Syrians marked the 14th anniversary of the civil war’s start.