Old wounds are still open and painful. Like tens of thousands of other Syrians, he lost a loved one, a brother, in the secret torture chambers of Saidnaya prison. When the doors of this notorious prison in Damascus were opened last week, he did not come out.
This excruciating pain and exhilarating happiness is palpable, especially for Syrians who can now bittersweetly return to Homs. Entire sections are still jagged cityscapes of gray rubble and gaping ruins.
“I needed to see it again, but it brings back painful memories,” observes Dr. Khayan al-Abrash, surveying the grim landscape of casualties around Khalidiya, shredded by Syrian firepower.
He points to the skeletal remains of a tall building, the facade of which was shaved by a Scud missile. He brought two more buildings to the ground.
He was also forced to leave the besieged Old City in 2014, abandoning his makeshift underground hospital there and in nearby Khalidiya.
He struggles to find it until the shop owner appears to unlock and open the metal shutter. It shows a dilapidated warehouse with a rickety metal staircase leading down to a dark, dank basement.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” he excitedly declares as our flashlights illuminate the cavernous space, including yet another staircase. “Patients used to come here,” he explains.
“Sometimes I’ve carried friends, neighbors, my cousin down those stairs on my back.”
It is next to a wall plastered with arrows pointing to “ambulance” as well as “death road” – the humor is even darker than this room.
The green and black flag of the opposition stands out, now everywhere.
