Returning to ruins

Children kicking around a soccer ball with an adult in front of destroyed buildings in the Yarmouk Camp neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria. — Laura Boushnak/ The New York Times

LUBNA Labaad walked among a flattened wasteland that was once her neighbours’ homes.

The only building left standing was a mosque, a years-old message scrawled on its outer wall from when rebels surrendered control of the area to the Syrian regime during the country’s brutal civil war: “Forgive us, oh martyrs.”