ALEPPO, Syria — The government-affiliated Homs Governorate Council recently gave the owners of the shops located in Homs city center a two-month deadline to reopen their shops that had been destroyed during the war.
On Jan. 24, Al-Watan daily, a newspaper close to the Syrian regime, quoted a source at the Homs Chamber of Commerce as saying, “The [Homs] council held successive meetings in the past period with merchants and neighborhood committees during which it called on them to return to the shopping district following its rehabilitation. In case they fail to do so, the council threatened to open the shops themselves. During the last meeting, they were given a two-month deadline to arrange their affairs and reopen their shops.”
