Aleppo – North-Press Agency
Zein al-Abdin Hussein
Over the past two years, the industrial zone of al-Sheqayef, northwestern Aleppo, became a destination of the craftsmen who were displaced from Afrin, after opening dozens of industrial and commercial stores.
Al-Sheqayef is one of the first industrial zones in Syria since its construction the 1980s, as the number of the stores reached more than 1,700 in 2011, including spare parts and auto repair stores, in addition to battery manufacturing factories.
Abdo Aref, an IDP from the Jinderis district of Afrin, said that after his displacement to Aleppo in 2018, he has opened an auto repair and spare parts selling store.
Most store owners in al-Sheqayef are IDPs from Afrin who depend on their professions as source of income protecting them from the hardship of displacement, but it is not as good as their jobs in Afrin were.
"Lack of work negatively affects us, it is not as good as it was in Afrin." He added.
Aref indicated that their business improved at the beginning of this year, but the emergence of the coronavirus threat caused it to decline again, especially with the start preventative measures in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, "so work is no longer sufficient for providing for a family."
The takeover of the Turkish army and its armed groups of the Afrin region on March 18th, 2018 caused the displacement of more than 350,000 civilians, most of whom fled to the villages and towns in the northern countryside of Aleppo. Some managed to enter the city of Aleppo, according to reports by human rights organizations.
Al-Sheqayef area was built in 1988, after it was just a number of stores for selling spare parts. The number of those stores increased after the decision to prevent the opening of industrial shops within the city of Aleppo and its neighborhoods.
Maher Mahmoud, from the Craftsmen and Industrialists Committee in the Civil Administration of the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah in Aleppo, said that the industrial zone in al-Sheqayef shut down as a result of the war, but that industrialists from Afrin contributed to restoring it after their displacement.
"The number of stores operating ranges between 300 and 400, including 70 stores owned by Afrin IDPs, who were able to reopen, restore, and rehabilitate the stores with the assistance of the People's Municipality." He added.
Mahmoud explained that their work began to rehabilitate the main street and verify proof of ownership through the legal office to give restoration licenses and a certificate to practice the profession, in addition to securing night guards and seeking to provide electricity to the area.
The takeover of al-Sheqayef area in March 2013 by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition armed groups resulted in the large-scale looting and plunder of most stores and factories.
In February, the head of Chamber of Industry in Aleppo, Fares al-Shihabi, accused Turkey of stealing entire Aleppo factories, as the number of the stolen factories in 2013 reached about one thousand, according to the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Industry.
Earlier, al-Shihabi told North-Press that Turkey "plundered all of Aleppo's factories through al-Nusra Front, which in turn, stole everything related to the infrastructure of the city of Aleppo."