The inner ring of hell

Updated

It was named "paradise" square, but the Islamic State made it a hell on earth. As thousands return to Raqqa, the horrors of the 'caliphate' still haunt Naim Square and overshadow attempts to rebuild the ruined city.

At a roundabout in the dead heart of Raqqa, Khaled al Sweilah points out the spikes where soldiers of the so-called Islamic State once impaled the heads of those they executed.

Scraps of tattered material cling to the jagged pikes stained by rust.

The scenes of brutality Khaled was forced to witness in Naim Square still haunt him, but it's what this gruesome spectacle did to the children of Raqqa that weighs on his mind.

"They were forcing the kids to attend executions. Now the children aren't afraid of things like this," he says.

"Before, the children would be afraid when they saw a chicken slaughtered. But now they are never afraid."

Naim Square — its name means "paradise" in Arabic — was once a scene of bustling commerce, traffic jams and night life.

On a hot summer's day, children would cross the green grass to splash in the fountain, while adults would stroll in the cool of nightfall.

But when IS took control of the city in 2013, they made this place the hellish epicentre of their so-called "caliphate".

It's where Australia's most notorious jihadist, Khaled Sharrouf photographed himself and his son holding up severed heads like gory trophies.

Inside its circular ring of steel, IS fighters cut off hands and heads to demonstrate their ruthless power and extreme interpretation of Islam.

"They were forcing the kids to attend executions. Now the children aren't afraid of things like this."

"They inserted a dagger in the man's chest, they were slaughtering the people here," Khaled recalls.

"They were forcing people to stand and watch the execution.

"This is our life, it's like hell," he says.

Now it stands as a monument to cruelty and folly — a reminder of those who were executed and the extremists who until recently ruled the city.

The grass and the water are gone, replaced with dust.

On the edge of the square, Khaled's truck is parked beside the roundabout, ready to haul away tonnes of wheat salvaged from IS stores.

The surrounding buildings are in ruins, destroyed in artillery barrages and airstrikes by the US-led coalition, which backed a local force of Arabs and Kurds to drive IS out in October.

Looking out from Naim to the rest of the city, the picture is much the same in all directions.

Raqqa is a city of ghosts. The bombed-out shells of buildings line almost every road.

It's the legacy of months of artillery and air strikes in the battle to oust the terror group from one of their final strongholds.

An old woman walks past the scene of the executions with two boys in tow, weary and covered in dust from sifting through rubble of their ruined home.

She is thinking not of the trauma of the past, but of an uncertain future.

"They hit the middle of our house with two rockets," she says.

"We had to abandon it and while we were gone, someone took everything. God help us."

In the two months since IS was defeated, more than 30,000 people have returned to the city, in northern Syria.

It's just a fraction of its original population. Around 330,000 people have been displaced in this region alone, and 100,000 are still homeless.

An estimated 1,800 civilians have been killed — although the exact number is disputed — and many more are unaccounted for.

The smell of rotting corpses trapped beneath the concrete torments those digging for missing loved ones.

And still, they are digging out what they can, burying whoever they find.

Just down the road from Naim Square, Ahmed Hussein and his family are pulling their belongings out of an enormous pile of smashed concrete and twisted metal.

It used to be their home.

Ahmed escaped Raqqa as the bombing by the US-led coalition closed in, hitting the surrounding countryside.

On returning to Raqqa they discovered the building next door — which housed IS fighters and their families — was still standing.

But their own apartment block had been reduced to a pile of bricks and dust. Now their ground floor home is nothing more than a dangerous cavern.

Ahmed and his family have come to salvage what they can.

"We just need the reconstruction commission to help us, it's not an easy construction. Only God can handle this," Ahmed says.

"Defeating IS caused us so much damage. But in the end, we have been liberated."

Elsewhere, two children are collecting scrap metal to make money from recycling.

Their mother needs $US50 to pay the rent on their temporary home or face eviction.

Many are returning to the city and doing their best to rebuild but aid groups are not moving in with them because of the risk of unexploded bombs.

It took a US-led coalition to wreak this havoc on the city, but there's little help with the aftermath.

International assistance is scarce, rehabilitation and reconstruction are almost non-existent.

The coalition says while it will help clear the rubble and re-establish basic services like electricity, it will not rebuild the city.

Raqqa may be liberated, but it is unliveable.

"I swear by God it will take 20 years to fix this," says Ali al Khadr.

"The situation here is very bad, they should build a new city somewhere else."

"I swear by God it will take 20 years to fix this ... They should build a new city elsewhere."

As well as the damage and danger, poverty threatens the city's innocents, forcing them to scavenge amidst the destruction.

At night, temperatures plummet to around zero.

To add to their suffering, Raqqa's residents must contend with the constant threat of unexploded bombs dropped by the coalition littered around the city.

Explosive devices and booby-traps left behind by IS soldiers are also an ever-present threat.

"There are many mines and everyday people are losing their lives because of the mines," says Ali.

In the space of just half an hour, the ABC witnessed multiple casualties brought to a medical clinic.

In the first incident, rescuers said a car had driven over an explosive device. In the second, a bomb exploded inside a house.

The US-backed, Kurdish-dominated militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is in control of the city.

But they are wedged between the government of Bashar al-Assad to the south and Turkey to the north. And neither wants to see the Kurds in charge for long.

A new phase in the conflict is looming. The city desperately needs help. But there's a danger that, with IS forced out, the world will simply forget about it.

Raqqa's next generation looks destined to inherit a city blighted by brutality and bombardment.

Credits

Reporter: Matt Brown

Video and photography: Aaron Hollett

Editing and production: Matt Henry

Video production: Joh McDiarmid

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, community-and-society, terrorism, syrian-arab-republic

First posted