New villages are mushrooming in Syria’s opposition-held areas
Syria's displaced are creating small towns after having been forced out of their hometowns.
Mahdi al-Daman has been on the move for five years, fleeing from one place to another. He bought a small plot of land in the town of New Karnaz recently, where he pitched a tent. He hopes to build a house, however, that would shelter him and his family from the cold.
Daman, from the town of Karnaz in the northern countryside of Hama, fled his hometown when the Syrian regime took control of it in 2013. He took flight in one of the camps for internally displaced persons along the border with Turkey.
Daman has now returned to settle in New Karnaz, a newly built town that is akin to his hometown. The town is one of several villages in southern Idlib countryside that is built by the displaced.
Since the beginning of 2016, eight new small towns have been established in the countryside of Idlib, inhabited by the displaced from Hama and Rif Dimashq, which is currently under the control of the Syrian regime. The area has a population of nearly 8,000 people, according to nonofficial figures from activists there and heads of local councils.
