\n Atop the ruins of Syria's famed Palmyra theatre, recently recaptured from the Islamic State group, teenage musician Angel Dayoub sings an old Arabic favourite: \"We're coming back, oh love, we're coming back.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The 15-year-old's voice floats over the ancient Roman theatre, heavily damaged then abandoned by IS jihadists on Thursday as Russian-backed government forces drew near.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"A little destruction won't stop us from coming here to play and sing on this stage, despite what happened to it,\" Dayoub tells AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I want to play music and sing everywhere that has seen the expulsion of IS, which hates singing and banned playing instruments,\" she says defiantly.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dayoub's rendition of Lebanese diva Fairuz's famous song is accompanied by fellow musicians of all ages playing violins, tambourines and the oud, the pear-shaped stringed instrument beloved in the Arab world.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We're singing 'We're coming back' because we will come back even stronger than before to rebuild Syria,\" she says.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Everyone will rebuild in their own way. We want to rebuild it with music and singing.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The city and its ruins, designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980, have traded hands several times during Syria's six-year war.\n<\/p>\n
\n IS first seized Palmyra in May 2015 and began to systematically destroy and loot the site's monuments and temples during a brutal ten-month reign.\n<\/p>\n
\n It used the ancient theatre as a venue for execution-style killings before being driven out in March 2016.\n<\/p>\n
\n The jihadists then recaptured Palmyra in December, blowing up the tetrapylon monument and part of the theatre.\n<\/p>\n
\n - IS 'is darkness, music is light' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Young musicians flocked to the theatre during a press tour organised by the army at the weekend, playing to an audience of dozens of Syrian and Russian soldiers.\n<\/p>\n
\n Explosions can still be heard in the distance, as Syrian forces and their Russian allies press their offensive against IS north and east of Palmyra.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Daesh (IS) wanted to ban us from the theatre, to ban us from singing, but I want to challenge it, to beat it,\" says Maysaa al-Nuqari, an oud player in her 30s.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dressed in a black leather jacket and combat boots, her curly hair dyed a deep red, Nuqari gestures at several nearby musicians to join the jam session.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Daesh is darkness, but music is light,\" she says.\n<\/p>\n
\n Although the precise date of its founding is unknown, Palmyra's name is referred to on a tablet dating from the 19th century BC as a stopping point for caravans between the Mediterranean and the east.\n<\/p>\n
\n It developed into a wealthy metropolis thanks to trade in spices, perfumes, silk and ivory from the east and became known to Syrians as the \"Pearl of the Desert.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Palmyra's temples, colonnaded alleys and elaborately decorated tombs -- some of the best preserved classical monuments in the Middle East -- attracted more than 150,000 tourists a year before Syria's conflict broke out.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'A few scratches' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Now, the difficult task of assessing what remains of those celebrated monuments has been left to Wael al-Hafyan, who heads the engineering unit in Homs province's antiquities department.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 40-year-old walks through the Old City, examining various artefacts and recording his observations in a small notebook.\n<\/p>\n
\n After a preliminary assessment, Hafyan says additional destruction is limited to the theatre's front including an arched recess behind the stage, as well as the explosion of the tetrapylon.\n<\/p>\n
\n He broke down when he came across the theatre and the tetrapylon, once a 16-columned structure that marked one end of Palmyra's colonnade.\n<\/p>\n
\n IS reduced it to a pile of rocks in a massive explosion in January, lambasted by the UN as \"a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's impossible for anyone with even an iota of humanity not to feel sad when they see this. I'm sad, and I will stay sad until Palmyra goes back to the way it was,\" Hafyan tells AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n But with international help and UNESCO's support, the engineer says, Palmyra can be restored.\n<\/p>\n
\n Asked to summarise what is left of Palmyra's renowned artefacts, Hafyan bites his lip and considers the question quietly.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"All of Palmyra is left. Palmyra's history has remained,\" he answers.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"A few scratches cannot distort its beauty. The enormity of what Daesh did here, all of its crimes, doesn't even amount to a scratch on this beautiful, glorious face that is Palmyra.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Atop the ruins of Syria's famed Palmyra theatre, recently recaptured from the Islamic State group, teenage musician Angel Dayoub sings an old Arabic favourite: \"We're coming back, oh love, we're coming back.\" The 15-year-old's voice floats over the ancient Roman theatre, heavily damaged then abandoned by IS jihadists on Thursday as Russian-backed government forces drew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-32370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n