One year after Syria's war ends, displaced families return to ruins, not homes

DAMASCUS, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A year after Syria's prolonged civil conflict ended with the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government, many Syrian families are finding that while the fighting has ceased, displacement persists. Across Aleppo and parts of Idlib provinces in northern Syria, families who spent years in camps have begun returning to their hometowns only to find them unrecognizable: flattened, emptied, and lacking the basic infrastructure that gives meaning to the word "return." In the vil