Hundreds of Syrians returned to everyday life on Wednesday by taking the first train ride through the ravaged city in five years of civil war.
The one-hour round-trip across the city’s devastated eastern districts, controlled by rebels until last month departed on Wednesday morning. The last time a train travelled through east Aleppo was in the summer of 2012 — just before the city was captured by insurgents and split into the regime-held west and rebel-controlled east.
Syria’s Transport Minister Ali Hamoud called the train-service resumption a “victory of the heroes of the Syrian army, returning safety and stability to the whole city.”
Syrians, old and young, looked stunned as they stared out train windows and surveyed the damage, as a driver manned the controls and steered the train from Jibreen station to Aleppo’s main Baghdad railway station, according to the AFP.
The riders pulled out their cell phones along the way and snapped photos of the remnants of their beloved city, which was razed during years of air strikes and ground warfare.
The train was adorned with portraits of President Bashar al-Assad at the front and in the carriages, the photographer said.
During repairs, inspectors found at least 40 points of damage caused by “terrorism” along the east Aleppo train line, Hamoud said.
Regime forces re-captured Aleppo in December, after receiving help from the Russians in their bombing efforts.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an estimated 21,500 civilians have been killed in the city since 2012.