ALEPPO — The good news is that the Syrian government reopened the crucial M5 highway connecting Damascus and Aleppo to commercial buses and trucks Feb. 22. But regaining control of the route from opposition forces has uprooted about a million people since December — many of them for the third or fourth time.
“Nothing can describe the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the regime forces,” said Mayas Doghaim, who was displaced from the Maarat al-Numan area southeast of Idlib. Doghaim, who works for Al-Hayat University for Medical Sciences, told Al-Monitor, “The regime forces and their allies are the undisputed barbaric invaders of our modern era. People who had a home and a roof over their heads are today homeless, left only with memories in displacement camps.”
