ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) — Aleppo’s beleaguered Old City, shelled, burned and shot up during years of fighting in Syria’s civil war, could be rebuilt with the help of local craftsmen and trainees, according to the United Nations cultural body UNESCO.
There are detailed plans for the Old City’s great medieval mosques, souks, bath houses and citadel from an earlier restoration that should allow exact reconstruction, a local UNESCO representative said.
The fighting in Aleppo ended in December when the Syrian army drove out rebels and now gradual efforts are being made to revive the city, one of the oldest in the Middle East.
But it needs the skills of Aleppo craftsmen, many of whom left the city during the war, some killed, others departing with the rebels or starting new lives as refugees abroad.
The UNESCO representative said the creation of a school for craftsmen was under consideration an one of the craftsmen who might help set up that school is Mustafa al-Now, a worker in the ornate, painted wood panels, windows, doors and ceilings that adorn old Aleppo houses.
There is precedent for such a historic rebuilding program.
In 2016, the 16th century Ottoman Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka in Bosnia-Herzegovina reopened, recreated from its original stones 23 years after it was blown up during the war in Bosnia.
