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Out of the ruins, will Aleppo ever be rebuilt by Gheath Abdel Ahad, read by Mouyeub.

The kebab stall stood in the shadow of a building whose three upper floors had been

sheared in half, leaving behind concrete slabs that seemed to hang in mid-air.

Under a tarpaulin, its edges weighted with cinder blocks stood a thin man with a thick white

beard. Smiling, he stoked the fire in a narrow grill.

Walking back and forth to a table set atop a wheelbarrow,

he tenderly inspected a dish laid out with tomatoes, greens, and a few skewers of meat.

A torn mat covered the floor, while a plastic icebox and a few more cinder blocks

provided seating for the customers who are yet to appear.

The streets were largely deserted here in Amrilla, a dilapidated suburb of Aleppo that once formed

the front line between the rebel-held enclave and government-controlled areas.

But there were a few signs of life, children hopping on and off a rusty motorcycle, a woman selling cigarettes and water from a shack,

a young man digging through the rubble with his hands, pulling out pieces of limestone and

stacking them in a neat pile to use later in rebuilding his own house.

They are much better than the new ones, he told me.

Across Syria, there are thousands of streets just like this one.

A year after Bashar al-Assad fled the country and his regime collapsed,

nearly three million Syrians have returned from abroad and from the refugee camps in the north.

Many drifted back into ghost neighbourhoods, places without water or electricity, where darkness swallowed

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