“Many will never return”

The temple, which was seriously damaged during the occupation of this predominantly Christian city by the Facing Al-Nusra In 2013 it was rehabilitated and one of the original icons saved from destruction and looting hangs on the walls again.

Since the fall of the old regime, every day in this mixed city has been an ordeal. Christians do not forget that the current president, Ahmed al Sharaawas the supreme leader of the group which, nine years ago, forcibly expelled them, destroyed their homes, beheaded statues of virgins, kidnapped twelve nuns from the convent of Santa Tecla and covered the walls with slogans of revenge against “the slaves of the Cross”.

He Syrian armywith the help of Hezbollahmanaged to free Malula after seven months of hard fighting. Then, Christian families like Fadwa’s began to return and the work of rebuilding the houses began, but it is not yet finished. “In these last twelve months, we can say that the situation is normal, but not like before the Al Nusra attack, because there are many families who will never return,” laments Fadwa, who interrupts the interview with the arrival of a group of foreign tourists in front of whom he performs the Our Father at Aramaic.

Since the summer, Malula has received on average 200 foreign tourists per monthaccording to the archives of a monastery which also recovered the cellar in honor of Saint Bacchus, the first thing destroyed by the jihadists. According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, in 2010, a year before the outbreak of the revolution against Bashar al Assadreceived 200,000 visitors.

Benjamin Crowley I just bought two bottles of red. This Australian owns Saiga Tours and prepares group trips to countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen. “In addition to cultural interest, people want to see how bad human beings can be, the level of destruction we are capable of causing, how horrible we can be,” says Crowley, who warns that the trip is “dangerous” and recalls that “on Monday there was a car bomb in Damascus, Israel can bomb at any time and the Islamic State is still present in several areas of the desert.”

From the monastery, tourists walk to the nearby Safir Hotel, a five-star establishment atop Malula that was reduced to ruins during the 2013 fighting.

Before the occupation of Al-QaedaAbout 5,000 people lived here. Now it is difficult to see people on the street or open stores, it is estimated that there are less than a thousand inhabitants. Odai Duaba 35-year-old lawyer, opened the city’s only butcher’s shop in June. Prepare liver platters and remember that “we are Muslims, we also fled in 2013 and lost our house. We tried to come back after the fighting ended, but they didn’t allow us because they called us “terrorists”. We were finally able to return when the regime collapsed and I rented an apartment and this store. “I feel like I was reborn and I think everything will be fine because Malula was before and should be again an example of coexistence, more than that, here. Muslims and Christians are brothers. »

Duab assures that seven Muslim families have returned in the last twelve months and that the authorities are repairing the place. mosques damaged. Next to the butcher’s is the George supermarket where you can buy food and alcohol. Your assistant is Mohameda Muslim classmate at school, with whom we share the attention given to customers. Like Odai, they believe that “everything will be fine and we will live together again.”

Aramaic in danger

Malula is next to Jabadin And Bakah one of three villages where Aramaic is still spoken in Syria, but it is the only one that is still predominantly Christian. It’s a postcard town with brown and purple houses hanging from a cliff and you get there after leaving the highway that connects the capital to Homs and face a narrow and very steep mountain road. The crosses mingle with the minarets and the call to prayer with the ringing of bells.

The war also had a direct impact on Aramaic, a language that constitutes a 7,000-year-old living cultural treasure and in danger of extinction. The fate of this ancient language could now depend on someone like George Zaarour“the only translator left in the world”, as he sadly reveals from his hanging house in the middle of the mountain. This 69-year-old man with severe vision problems has dedicated his life to teaching Aramaic and is helplessly watching its end.

“The language is tied to the land, people were forced to leave and the language was lost. 80 percent of residents have left. This government that we currently have is not made up of technocrats, they have just arrived and have many open fronts,” laments the translator, who shows his latest work, a work by the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. Zaarour hopes that the people of Malula will return and with them the language of Jesus will resurrect.