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Osman Bahadir Dincer, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) ; Bahar Baser, Durham University, and Zeynep Sahin Mencütek, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC)

It was around seven o’clock in the evening when we arrived at a church in the city of Hama, Syria, to attend the wedding of a friend. As guests gradually filled the courtyard, music began to echo through the building. One by one, the bride, groom, and their relatives entered the church accompanied by songs, applause and cheers.

After the religious ceremony concluded, groups of young men and women began performing Ewiha, a traditional wedding chant in Syria and the Levant. Their voices rose and fell in a rhythmic dialogue as verses praising the bride and groom were answered by equally poetic responses from across the room.

Each verse concluded with a joyful zalghouta – the high-pitched ululation that has accompanied celebrations across the Arab world for generations.

At first glance, there was nothing extraordinary about the wedding. Yet after more than a decade of war, the celebration felt like something more than a family gathering. It offered a powerful reminder that cultural traditions, social bonds, and everyday celebrations continue to endure, and that Syrians are trying to rebuild ordinary lives amid an uncertain transition.

But we were not in Syria to attend a wedding. As peace and conflict researchers, the three of us have long worked on questions of displacement, refugee return and post-conflict recovery; combining research on Syria with broader comparative perspective.

For this particular field trip, two of us, Bahadir and Zeynep, had spent the previous week travelling across Damascus, Rural Damascus, Aleppo and Raqqa observing firsthand how Syrians are navigating the country’s transition.

The journey, from June 1 to June 7, 2026, was part of a broader research programme that has involved more than 200 interviews over the past two years with Syrian returnees, internally displaced people, local officials, humanitarian workers and civil society representatives. These conversations, together with our wider research, have informed a series of peer-reviewed publications and policy reports on refugee return and reconstruction.

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For years, researchers had studied Syria from afar, unable to conduct fieldwork across government-controlled areas during the Assad era. Although we made several short visits to Damascus after the regime’s collapse, this was our first opportunity to travel across the country and observe firsthand how people were rebuilding their lives – and how Syria’s transition was unfolding beyond the headlines.

We encountered destroyed neighbourhoods standing alongside reopened shops. Abandoned industrial sites and damaged infrastructure coexisted with busy cafes and crowded restaurants. Communities continued to struggle with unemployment, rising prices and unreliable electricity while many people nevertheless spoke cautiously of hope and new beginnings.

The contrast captured something important about Syria today: hope and hardship coexist. So do recovery and destruction.

Between recovery and ruin

The scale of the challenge remains immense. More than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, and nearly 16.5 million people in Syria need humanitarian aid, alongside 2.5 million returnees.

Almost a quarter of the country’s housing stock has been damaged or destroyed, and reconstruction costs are estimated by the World Bank to exceed US$200 billion (around £150bn). Yet international support remains far below what is needed: as of mid-2025, the UN’s humanitarian response plan had received only a small fraction (14 %) of its required funding.

Food insecurity affects millions of people, while years of conflict have severely weakened the country’s productive capacity.

These figures help explain the scale of Syria’s crisis, but they reveal little about how it is experienced in everyday life. That became much clearer during our journey: in conversations over tea, on long drives between cities, while walking through damaged neighbourhoods, and in discussions with residents, civil society representatives, local officials and business owners. Across these encounters, one impression emerged again and again.

Many Syrians welcomed the political changes, but few believed that political change alone would improve their lives. Economic concerns dominated almost every conversation.

Basic infrastructure remains under severe strain, with large parts of the country’s electricity, water and sanitation networks still non-functional. More than two million children remain out of school, while a shortage of teachers continues to undermine the education system.

Yet the challenges facing Syria are not distributed evenly.

What struck us most was how fragmented people’s experiences of the war had become. The contrast between affluent neighbourhoods such as Abu Rummaneh and heavily damaged areas like Jobar in Damascus could hardly be greater. The availability of basic services and living standards vary dramatically across regions, cities and even neighbourhoods. In Abu Rummaneh, restaurants are full, cafés are crowded and daily life appears relatively stable. Nevertheless, as one local resident told us:

“We sit on the ashes, and everything remains extremely fragile.”

Elsewhere in Damascus, entire districts still bear the scars of war. We were struck by how many residents had not visited Jobar since the fall of the Assad regime, despite living only a few kilometres away.

For many, the district remained a place known through photographs rather than personal experience. We were equally surprised to find that many humanitarian workers, NGO staff and policy professionals based in Damascus rarely ventured beyond the city’s central neighbourhoods. In many ways, Jobar felt as distant to them as it did to visitors from abroad.

These uneven realities are further complicated by the ongoing return of displaced Syrians. During a brief break between meetings, the Syria country director of one of the largest humanitarian organisations operating across the country welcomed us into her office.

As we cooled down with glasses of water and cups of coffee, after walking through the summer heat of Damascus, our conversation turned to the growing pressures facing Syria’s cities. “Returns to cities lead to rising prices, higher utility costs, more expensive housing and additional pressure on already scarce services”, she explained. For many returnees, settling in the capital is currently more feasible than returning to their original communities.

The individual stories reveal what return looks like in practice. For example, Ahmad, our local research assistant, returned from Turkey to Damascus immediately after the fall of the Assad regime, even though his hometown is Raqqa. Unable to find suitable employment there, he now works as a sports trainer at a youth centre in Damascus. Despite earning an income, he cannot afford to rent an apartment and instead lives in a room within the sports complex.

We heard a similar story from a taxi driver in Damascus who had returned from Turkey five years earlier after years of displacement. Originally from Idlib, he picked us up outside our hotel and, as we crawled through Damascus traffic, told us that despite holding a university degree, driving his ageing taxi was the only steady work he had been able to find.

“This taxi is my only reliable source of income,” he said, tapping the dashboard. “It constantly needs repairs, but without it, I wouldn’t be able to support myself.”

By the time he dropped us off in Bab Touma, our short journey had become another reminder that returning home is only the first step toward rebuilding a life.

On the road across Syria

Our journey towards Rural Damascus, Aleppo, Raqqa and Hama began at 7:30 on a warm Damascus morning, when Ahmed – our driver, research assistant and guide for the days ahead – picked us up from our hotel. Although the city was only beginning to wake up, the summer heat was already building. Before continuing towards rural Damascus, we asked Ahmed to take a short detour through Jobar and Yarmouk.

Jobar, once one of the fiercest frontlines between government forces and rebel factions from 2013 to 2018, remains perhaps the most heavily damaged district of the capital. Entire blocks have been reduced to rubble.

As we walked through the shattered streets, Mohammed, a young activist who had recently returned to Syria and now worked in a local government office, reflected on what the neighbourhood had endured.

“Even though Jobar has always been part of Damascus, it was forgotten during the war and remained forgotten afterwards,” he told us. Gesturing towards the collapsed buildings around us, he continued:

“Since the fall of the regime, most of what you see has been done by people who have returned. They are clearing the rubble, repairing what they can and trying to rebuild their lives. But many Damascenes still haven’t set foot here. Jobar cannot truly recover unless the rest of Damascus comes back too – not only to rebuild it, but to see it, remember it and make it part of the city again.”

Yarmouk, once the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, presents a similarly sobering picture. While a small number of homes have been partially repaired, much of the neighbourhood remains scarred by destruction.

As we walked through the area, we noticed an elderly couple sitting quietly on plastic chairs outside one of the few inhabited houses, surrounded by rubble and the remnants of damaged buildings. They appeared to be watching the street – or what remained of it.

The scene captured the contradictions of post-war Syria: life has returned, but often under conditions that would be difficult to imagine from a distance. For many residents, rebuilding has meant learning to live alongside the ruins rather than beyond them.

Travelling further into Eastern Ghouta and Harasta offers another stark reminder of the scale of destruction that still shapes much of the country.

Yet what is striking is not only the destruction, but the coexistence of destruction and recovery.

Beside a ruined apartment block, a small shop may have reopened to sell bread or construction materials. On streets where fighting once took place, children play or collect scrap to sell, while a father, mother and children ride together on a single motorcycle. Life is returning, often much faster than reconstruction. Small shops and derelict children’s playgrounds can be seen amid the war-damaged buildings.

After this brief but sobering visit to Rural Damascus, we set off for Aleppo. The journey itself proved almost as revealing as the cities themselves. Along the M5 highway, abandoned buildings, depopulated settlements and damaged industrial facilities stand as reminders of the conflict’s enduring legacy.

Yet signs of recovery appeared just as frequently: roadside fruit vendors selling seasonal produce, families stopping at newly reopened shops and a steady stream of traffic where ageing vehicles now shared the road with new cars. Ahmed smiled as he pointed to several recently imported SUVs passing us. “Before 2025,” he said, “you almost never saw new cars on Syrian roads. They’ve only started appearing recently.”

Near Hama, we stopped at a large roadside supermarket. Workers stocked shelves while families shopped for groceries. Ahmed insisted that we try a local milk-based dessert, a small gesture of hospitality that would be repeated throughout our journey. Such moments served as reminders that alongside destruction and hardship, everyday life and customs continue.

Aleppo: a broken city

The last time we had travelled through Aleppo countryside was in 2013. More than a decade later, we found ourselves approaching the city with a mixture of curiosity, anticipation and unease. We did not know what awaited us.

For years, Aleppo had existed for us through news reports, and the testimonies of those who had fled. The prospect of finally seeing, with our own eyes, a city that had occupied so much of our research and conversations over the years was both exciting and deeply humbling.

The city that greeted us reflected both its long history and the profound transformations brought about by the conflict. After checking into our hotel in the Aziziyeh district, we wasted little time before heading straight to the Old City. For years, we had heard about the devastation that had befallen Aleppo’s historic heart.

Walking through its narrow streets, it was difficult not to imagine the vibrant markets, workshops and cafés that had once animated these neighbourhoods. Although restoration has brought parts of the old souq and several historic landmarks back to life, large sections of the Old City remain scarred by war, making it impossible to ignore the scale of what Aleppo has lost.

Together with Amr, an Aleppo native who guided us through the city, we spent hours walking through some of the hardest-hit districts, including parts of the Old City, Shaar, Hanano, Karm al-Jabal and Qadi Askar.

The scenes were overwhelming. Destroyed apartment blocks, mountains of rubble and damaged infrastructure remain an integral part of the urban landscape. Walking through the crowded streets with Amr, he pointed to a recently cleared road. “Many of the people returning to Syria are coming back to Aleppo,” he told us. “Many of these streets were blocked by rubble. People cleared them themselves. Otherwise, they couldn’t even get to their homes.”

We also visited Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah following the political and military changes that took place earlier this year. Aleppo felt neither fully recovered nor frozen in the past.

As evening fell, the streets filled with families, cafés buzzed with conversation, and restaurants were packed with people enjoying the cooler hours after the summer heat. All this was in stark contrast with the destruction we had witnessed only hours earlier.

Raqqa and the weight of multiple conflicts

Early the next morning, after a simple breakfast of falafel and tea, we began the long drive east towards Raqqa with Ahmed.

Now in his late-thirties, Ahmed had grown up in Raqqa as one of 11 siblings before moving to Damascus for university. Like many Syrians of his generation, the war had disrupted much of what might otherwise have been an ordinary life. Years of displacement, uncertainty and constant upheaval had postponed plans that many of his peers elsewhere might have taken for granted – including getting married, something he now hoped to do in the near future.

Ahmed had not travelled this route, from Aleppo to Raqqa, for more than 15 years. Throughout the conflict, the route had been effectively closed to ordinary civilians as frontlines shifted and different armed groups controlled different stretches of the highway. As we drove further east, the journey became as much about his personal memories as about Syria’s recent history.

Every so often, he slowed the car to take a photograph. When we asked what had caught his attention, his answer was rarely political. “It just reminds me of my childhood,” he said with a smile. A weathered wall by the roadside, an abandoned building, or a familiar landmark would suddenly unlock another memory from a life interrupted by war.

As we passed an abandoned cement factory on the outskirts of Aleppo, he eased off the accelerator and looked towards the empty building: “Whenever we saw that factory, we knew we had arrived in Aleppo”, he recalled. After a brief pause, he looked at the complex and quietly added “now it is no longer working.”

A little later, he slowed down again, this time pointing towards an old roadside wall. Smiling, he said: “My brothers and I used to play games here whenever we travelled to Aleppo.” It was a simple memory, yet one that revealed how Syria’s roads hold far more than the traces of war.

As we approached Raqqa, the scenery began to change. The dry, dusty landscape gave way to greener fields nourished by the waters of the Euphrates. After hours on a highway that alternated between smooth stretches and cratered sections – forcing Ahmed to brake, accelerate and swerve repeatedly to avoid potholes – the sight of the river valley was refreshing.

Crossing the Euphrates over bridges hastily repaired, we entered what Syrians often refer to simply as east of the river – a vast region encompassing Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasaka.

Only a few months earlier, reaching Raqqa had been significantly more complicated. Until recently, the city was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led coalition that governed much of north-eastern Syria separately from the authorities in Damascus. Now, following the SDF’s withdrawal from the city in early January, we were able to enter Raqqa freely.

Raqqa feels different from Damascus or Aleppo. It is not necessarily the most physically destroyed city, but it may be one of the most exhausted. Long before the war, Raqqa was among Syria’s least developed and a neglected province. It later became a centre of anti-regime mobilisation, endured years of conflict, served as the de facto capital of Islamic State (IS) and subsequently came under SDF administration.

The cumulative weight of these experiences is visible everywhere. Not only the people seem tired; the roads, buildings and public spaces carry a similar sense of exhaustion. Even the remains of the summer palace associated with Harun al-Rashid, the eighth-century Abbasid caliph, who ruled one of the most powerful empires of the medieval Middle East, appear worn by history.

Our visit to Raqqa coincided with Friday prayer, so we briefly went our separate ways. Bahadir joined our local host at one of Raqqa’s largest mosques, while Zeynep spent the time with a local family in their home.

The mosque was packed. One detail stood out immediately: the large number of visibly disabled worshippers, a quiet reminder of the human costs of years of war. Yet what left an even stronger impression came at the end of the sermon. The imam announced that donations would be collected after prayers for communities affected by recent flooding in Deir ez-Zor. Similar collections, he explained, were taking place in mosques across the country. The moment may seem unremarkable elsewhere, but in a country fragmented for years by conflict, competing authorities and shifting frontlines, the idea that communities across Syria were contributing to a common cause felt significant.

Meanwhile, Zeynep was sitting in the guest room of a modest apartment on the third floor of a six-story building, listening to the stories of two sisters who had returned to Raqqa.

Among two brothers and eight sisters, almost every major migration trajectory was represented. One sister, a middle-aged schoolteacher, had spent four years in Turkey before returning to reclaim her teaching position in Raqqa. Another had sought refuge in Jordan, she returned only a few months earlier, while her husband and son remained behind, hoping to join her later. Other siblings and relatives were scattered across Turkey, Germany and different parts of Syria. Yet despite the distance separating them, the family remained closely connected, constantly exchanging news, coordinating plans and talking about when they might be together again.

Looking around the room, one of the sisters smiled sadly. “Before the war,” she said, “this room was always full. There was hardly any space because our whole family gathered here. Now it’s just the two of us. The others have scattered like leaves in the wind. But, God willing, our mother will return soon. Then perhaps our brother, and one day our children and grandchildren too.”

For many Syrian families, displacement has become a long-term condition that generates complex patterns of mobility, transnational connection, return, separation, and reunion, continuing to shape everyday life long after the guns have fallen silent.

Once the visit to the mosque was over, we reunited to the sisters’ apartment, where Arabic coffee and homemade cake were waiting for us. After one last conversation and our farewells, we set off for Hama, where we had been invited to a wedding, before continuing to Damascus later that evening.

The road from Raqqa back toward western Syria revealed both change and continuity. Burnt-out military vehicles still lined parts of the route, while former checkpoints stood abandoned, reduced to empty plots of land and crumbling structures. Yet another feature caught our attention: long queues of ageing trucks moving slowly along the highway, a reminder that commerce and mobility are gradually returning.

These signs of renewed movement, however, should not be mistaken for a broader economic recovery. Along much of the route, we saw little evidence that major industrial facilities, food-processing plants, or energy infrastructure were being restored at the scale required to revive local economies. This was particularly striking given the importance of agriculture and energy for Syria’s future recovery.

By midday, the heat had become almost unbearable, and we pulled over at a small roadside shop to buy water. The makeshift building stood alone beside the highway, surrounded by an otherwise empty landscape. Inside, most of the large room was bare. In one corner, a few tables displayed biscuits and wafers, while an old refrigerator held a handful of cold drinks.

A young shopkeeper, probably in his early twenties, came over to greet us. He first asked in Arabic where we were from. When we replied that we lived in Germany but were originally from Turkey, he immediately switched to fluent Turkish. Having recently returned after several years there, he was eager to share how much had changed since coming home. “Five months ago,” he said as he handed us bottles of water, “I would have been stopped at ten checkpoints to get here. Sometimes I would wait for hours. Economically, life may have been easier then. But we had no freedom of movement. Now I can travel without anyone stopping me.”

In fact, despite being foreigners, we experienced something of that change ourselves. Travelling with a Syrian colleague, and perhaps also because one of us was a woman, we passed checkpoint after checkpoint without ever being asked to stop. Each time, Ahmed simply slowed the car, exchanged a brief greeting with the soldiers and continued on our way.

One of the changes people mentioned most often was the simple ability to travel freely. Whether moving between cities or crossing from one neighbourhood to another, no longer being stopped, questioned, or delayed represented a profound shift after years in which movement had been shaped by checkpoints, frontlines and competing authorities. As one Syrian after another told us, “the road has become a road again.”

Freedom amid ruins

Many Syrians describe the post-Assad period as a “liberation”. Across different regions and social backgrounds, people repeatedly spoke about the end of fear, the ability to express opinions more openly and the possibility of imagining a different future. While political views remain diverse and uncertainties abound, there is nevertheless a widespread sense that a new chapter has begun.

What struck us was that people rarely explained this through abstract political language. Instead, they pointed to small changes in everyday life. In Damascus and Aleppo, many drew our attention to functioning traffic lights and police officers managing busy intersections. “Look around you,” they would say. “The traffic lights are working again. The police are back on the streets. These are small things, but they make people feel that life is becoming normal again.”

Around Raqqa, following the withdrawal of the SDF from parts of the region, residents expressed a similar sentiment. “For the first time in years,” one resident told us, “we feel free.” For many, this was not primarily a political statement but a reflection of how they experienced everyday life.

Hope was visible not only in what people told us, but also in what they were doing. In Aleppo, we visited a community centre where we met Esma, Mustafa and several other staff members working to support women, children and returning families through educational and rehabilitation programmes.

The building itself reflected Syria’s changing realities. Once the Baath Party’s youth centre, where generations of young Syrians were exposed to state ideology, it has recently been transformed into a place for learning, vocational training and community support.

Esma, who returned from Turkey despite holding Turkish citizenship, now teaches Turkish/Arabic at the centre. Mustafa, who returned from Germany, serves as its director, coordinating its educational and rehabilitation programmes. As we walked through the building together, moving from one classroom to another, we asked Esma why she had chosen to return despite having opportunities to remain abroad. Her answer came without hesitation: “My country is trying to stand up again. People here need us. If not now, then when we will contribute?” Standing beside her, Mustafa nodded quietly, a smile spreading across his face as she spoke. He did not add anything; he didn’t need to. His expression said he fully agreed.

We encountered similar positive scenes in Raqqa. Along the banks of the Euphrates, families gathered for picnics while young boys plunged into the fast-moving current without hesitation. Nearby, young men ferried visitors along the river in small boats fitted with rows of plastic chairs, offering short sightseeing trips. Vendors moved between the groups selling tea and coffee, while others washed their cars along the riverbank. Much of this everyday activity unfolded beneath the partially repaired bridge connecting the eastern and western sides of the city.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary summer afternoon by the river. Yet there was something profoundly symbolic about people reclaiming a space that had once been synonymous with war.

Reconstruction projects in Syria often carry a significance that extends far beyond their practical purpose.

Driving back from Hama to Damascus late one evening, we found ourselves unexpectedly caught in a celebration. Earlier that day, President Ahmed al-Sharaa had officially reopened the Rastan Bridge, a strategic crossing that had remained closed for years. Only a few days earlier, we ourselves had been forced to bypass the bridge and drive through Rastan because the crossing was still inaccessible.

Now the atmosphere was entirely different. Families strolled together, young men waved Syrian flags, children ran between the crowds and motorcycles carrying two or three passengers moved slowly back and forth as people stopped to take photographs and celebrate on the bridge.

Yet the optimism we encountered during our travels was almost always accompanied by reminders of the challenges that remain. Across much of the country, the physical, economic and social consequences of war continue to shape everyday life.

Economic difficulties are only one dimension of the challenges Syrians continue to face. Another lies beneath the ground itself. As we were leaving Raqqa, Ahmed pointed towards the open fields stretching alongside the road. They looked calm and ready for cultivation, yet he shook his head. “Hardly a week passes without reports of new casualties,” he said quietly. “People still lose their lives because of mines.”

His remark immediately brought us back to a meeting a few days earlier at the United Nations Development Programme office in Aleppo. Standing in front of a large wall map of the city, one UNDP official traced neighbourhood after neighbourhood with his finger as he explained the scale of destruction and contamination. Large areas of farmland, villages and former frontlines, he told us, remain littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance, preventing people from farming, rebuilding, or even returning safely.

We heard the same concern echoed by government officials. During a meeting in Damascus, one ministry representative described mine clearance as one of the country’s most urgent priorities. “We need to clear the mines,” she told us. “They are everywhere in Syria.”

Returning to Syria is difficult

Our journey across Syria reinforced a finding that has emerged repeatedly from our research on refugee return: crossing the border is only the beginning. Experiences from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraq and other post-conflict settings show that return often remains partial, temporary, or circular when employment opportunities, public services, social trust and functioning institutions are absent.

Across these cases, return has proven to be a long-term process of reintegration. As one adviser involved in Syria’s return and recovery policies, told us: “We aim to bring 80 percent of Syrian refugees from Germany, as the German Chancellor requested. However, this requires the creation of 200,000 jobs and housing beforehand. Refugee returns should be conducted in a dignified manner to ensure they go back to safe areas, both psychologically and politically. For example, returning refugees should have access to a roof and non-mined environments.”

The real question is no longer whether Syrians want to return, but whether the conditions exist for them to remain. With widespread housing shortages, limited employment, fragile public services and millions of people still relying on remittances from relatives abroad, many returnees risk exchanging one form of uncertainty for another. Without meaningful reconstruction and economic recovery, return is unlikely to mark the end of displacement – it may simply become another stage of it.

Across Europe, discussions about Syria increasingly focus on whether the conditions for refugee return are finally emerging. Yet our journey across the country suggests that these debates often overlook Syria’s current realities. Even government officials acknowledged that rebuilding homes, restoring infrastructure, reviving the economy and supporting displaced communities are already stretching the country’s limited resources.

Under these circumstances, a rapid increase in refugee returns could place additional pressure on communities that are themselves still struggling to recover. As one resident in Damascus put it “returnees will drown Syria” – not because their return is unwelcome, but because the country’s economy and institutions are simply yet not able to absorb large numbers of people.

Our journey ended shortly after 1am, when Ahmed dropped us off at our hotel in Damascus. In just a few hours, we would be boarding our flight back to Germany. Yet as we said our goodbyes, our thoughts returned once again to the wedding in Hama.

For a few hours, conversations shifted away from war, displacement, politics and economic hardship. Families gathered, children played, music filled the courtyard and guests celebrated the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the bride and groom. It was not that people had forgotten Syria’s challenges.

Everyone present was fully aware of them. Rather, it was the determination to celebrate despite them.

Osman Bahadir Dincer, Senior Researcher, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) ; Bahar Baser, Professor in Political Science and International Relations, Durham University, and Zeynep Sahin Mencütek, Senior Researcher in International Politics, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.