Day laborers prepare cement for mixing at a construction site next to destroyed buildings in in Deir al-Zour, Syria.
Long neglected by the Syrian state and one of the first cities to rise up in the 2011 revolution, Deir al-Zour endured years of siege, bombardment, and successive occupation by government forces, ISIS, and Kurdish-led fighters. The conflict left around 75% of the city’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed. In 2025, the Euphrates River marked a divide; the government controlled one bank, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) the other, complicating daily movement, trade, and access to services. For those who remained, and those who returned, rebuilding continued regardless.
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