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After IS, Damascus Suburb Residents Blocked from Going Home
Ownership is such a fluid concept in that part of the world. How this reflects on the claims of the Palestinians is left as an exercise for the reader.
[AnNahar] nullnullAbu Mohammed thought he could finally go home after jihadists were expelled from his Damascus suburb, but he says Syrian authorities have blocked his return by wrongly classifying his dwelling as unfit to live in.

In May, regime forces turfed the Islamic State group out of a chunk of the capital's southern Tadamun neighbourhood with a campaign of air strikes and shelling.

For the first time in six years that meant full government control was restored over the area, bringing with it a calm that sparked hopes of a homecoming. But instead, Abu Mohammed and others from Tadamun complain, the authorities have deemed many residences unfit, and are blocking their owners from returning ahead of a controversial redevelopment plan.

Five months after IS was forced out, regime barrages impede access to the former jihadist stronghold now under tight security, and an AFP team was unable to enter.

But because Tadamun is an informal neighbourhood, only 10 percent of the homes have officially registered property deeds.
The neighbourhood of Tadamun has long been in a grey zone. Once orchards, it has been populated since the late 1960s by people who fled the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights or flooded into Damascus from the countryside, often without official permission to build there. But today its fate seems particularly uncertain after provincial authorities last month announced it would be affected by a controversial development law.

The law, known as Decree 10, allows the government to seize private property to create zoned developments, compensating owners with shares of the new projects. If their land is selected, owners inevitably lose their property and must apply to receive shares in exchange.

Construction is not set to start in Tadamun for several years, but officials have already been dispatched to inspect its homes. A provincial commission has been charged with evaluating damage and rating whether around 25,000 residential units are fit for human habitation. Even if their homes are declared up to standard, no resident can move back until further notice.

Tadamun was overrun by rebels in 2012, then part of it fell three years later to the jihadists of IS.

Over the years, most residents were forced to flee their homes, and just 65,000 people live there today, compared to 250,000 before the outbreak of the war in 2011.

Homes that are declared fit for habitation are given a serial number and sealed with red wax and officials insist that the owners can reclaim them easily.

A resident can "get (their house) back normally after proving ownership", Tadamun mayor Ahmed Iskandar told AFP, talking by a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad in military uniform and sunglasses.

But because Tadamun is an informal neighbourhood, only 10 percent of the homes have officially registered property deeds -- and that is if they have not been lost during the war. Most of the others from the area only have semi-official papers showing residency.

Even for those who do manage to return, the respite appears only temporary. Eventually reconstruction, set to start in four to five years, should see the whole area razed to the ground.

Then too, no more than a tenth of the suburb's population will ever be able to present property deeds to receive shares in the reconstruction project.

But inspection commission head Srour said those who could not prove ownership -- likely at least 90 percent of residents -- would not be made homeless.

"We won't throw people out into the street, but provide them with compensation or alternative housing," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-11-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=527350