Syrians who fled home rejoice at Assad’s ouster, although some are cautious | Syria’s War News

Beirut, Lebanon – Youssef Salah and Mohammad Mahmoud exchanged joyful cheek kisses from their motorbikes in Cola Roundabout, a busy transport hub in Beirut.

“At the moment is the most effective morning,” the smiling Mahmoud, 20, mentioned. “We really feel the most important pleasure,” he gestured at Ali al-Abed, 20, who was seated behind him.

“We’re from Deir Az Zor,” al-Abed mentioned, including: “Free Deir Az Zor, write it down like that!”

A person from south Lebanon shopping for breakfast from a kaak (a sort of Arabic bread) vendor shouted over: “Who will rule you now? The People, the Israelis?”

“I don’t know, nevertheless it’s been 13 years,” Mahmoud shouted again. “Khalas [enough]!”

The three younger males had been beaming the morning after the top of the al-Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria after 53 years.

A lightning offensive by Syrian opposition teams that freed individuals in regime prisons and took massive cities – Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eventually Damascus – took simply greater than per week.

Hafez al-Assad got here to energy in 1971, and his son Bashar succeeded him in 2000, after Hafez’s dying.

Syrians rose in opposition to the regime in 2011 however confronted a brutal crackdown that devolved right into a conflict involving regional and worldwide actors.

As of the top of November, greater than 5 million Syrians had been refugees across the area and tens of millions extra had been internally displaced.

Syrians who needed to flee their homeland to flee the violence spoke to Al Jazeera in regards to the tumultuous emotions they woke as much as on Sunday.

Echoes of cruelty

Most across the area welcomed the top of the al-Assad dynasty.

“One coronary heart isn’t sufficient to carry this nice pleasure,” Yehya Jumaa, a Homsi in Jordan, instructed Al Jazeera. “We’d like 10 hearts to bear this pleasure.”

But, the regime has fallen, however the echoes of its brutality reside on by way of the harm it has achieved to lots of its individuals.

Mohammad, 33, a Homsi in Chtoura, Lebanon, mentioned three of his family members had been launched from jail on Sunday, however others had been nonetheless lacking.

Nonetheless, Mohammad mentioned, the veil of worry of talking the reality had lifted.

“Previously, for those who approached me, I wouldn’t have talked. However now we aren’t scared,” he mentioned, standing exterior a procuring centre in Chtoura, about half an hour’s drive from Beirut.

“All of the worry is gone.”

Behind him, Syrians rejoiced and chanted loudly: “God, Syria, freedom and that’s all!”

Jumaa was additionally saddened, he mentioned, by the state of the prisoners who had been launched from regime prisons.

“So many had no thought what had been happening for years. Some thought it was [late Iraq strongman ] Saddam Hussein who had liberated them.”

Aleppan Abdelmonieim Shamieh, who can also be in Jordan, mentioned he, too, had skilled al-Assad’s prisons when he was taken as a highschool scholar in 1982.

“I used to be overcome with pleasure, with tears on the sight of the detainees … once I was within the jail cells, I noticed with my very own eyes and heard with my very own ears the torture prisoners undergo, one thing no human can bear.”

“Lots of my buddies [who were arrested with him] died underneath torture,” Shamieh mentioned.

Going residence?

In Cairo, Egypt, two younger Syrians spoke of returning to their homeland, although solely considered one of them is sufficiently old to recollect the land he left.

Amjad, 22, is a contented man as he went by way of his shift.

His Egyptian co-workers had rejoiced with him, hugging and congratulating him for what occurred in Syria.

“Now I can return and reside in my nation,” he mentioned with tears in his eyes.

He had fled Syria two years in the past, to get away from a brutal conscription service that might last as long as eight years as al-Assad tried to shore up his forces.

Now, he doesn’t have to remain away. “As quickly as my UN card expires, in two months, I’ll journey.”

A number of blocks over, 16-year-old Suleyman Sukar is minding the store on the small roastery his household co-owns.

The teenager acquired no sleep on Saturday evening because the household waited for developments within the strategy to Damascus, but appeared alert sufficient on Sunday, teeming with ideas.

He was solely 4 years outdated when his household needed to flee Ghouta in 2012 as regime assaults intensified, he mentioned. So he remembers little or no of his beloved Syria.

As an alternative, his attachment to “residence” got here by way of the recollections of his mother and father and brothers, and thru speaking to his prolonged household again residence.

Settling in Egypt was not straightforward for the Sukars as his mother and father needed to work odd jobs for seven years earlier than they saved sufficient to open the roastery.

But it surely doesn’t matter, Suleyman mentioned. As quickly as issues had been secure in Syria, they might go residence.

Suhaib al-Ahmad, a 58-year-old grocer within the Turkish capital, Ankara, agrees and believes Syrians overseas ought to contribute to the reconstruction of their homeland.

“We should return with hearts stuffed with hope and work to revive Syria because it was and even higher,” he mentioned

“I hope this pleasure is an efficient omen for Syria and its individuals … I additionally hope Syria’s future might be brilliant, simply as we at all times dreamed.”

Again at Tariq el-Jdideh, Beirut, Bishar Ahmad Nijris stood, jubilant, chatting at his fruit stand.

“It’s a victory for the entire world,” Nijris, 41, mentioned.

“There’s no extra oppression and we are able to all reside as one individuals, with out sectarianism … That’s what we would like.”

Nijris can also be a veteran of al-Assad’s prisons after being arrested and held with out costs for 2 months in Mezzeh jail in 2013.

He hails from Israel-occupied Golan Heights, the place his spouse and kids travelled to on Saturday evening – he needs to hitch them quickly.

“I can go and I’ll go, God prepared.”

No extra al-Assad bogeyman

In a restaurant in Tariq el-Jdeideh, Ahmad, from the Aleppo countryside, scrolled by way of his cellphone as he sipped espresso along with his cousin Ibrahim. Ahmad has not seen Syria in 13 years however Ibrahim comes and goes.

As they chatted, one other Aleppan entered the cafe along with his three kids, carrying trays of baklava, a Center Japanese candy, that they handed out to all of the cafe ‘s purchasers.

“Congratulations in your victory,” the cafe proprietor instructed the youngsters’s father.

“Have a look at this,” Ahmad mentioned, scrolling by way of his buddies’ Fb tales. Most had been posts exhibiting the inexperienced, white and black free Syria flag.

“Have you learnt the place Assad is?” he requested, earlier than turning his cellphone to indicate a meme of the deposed Syrian president. “He’s caught within the desert!”

Ahmad and Ibrahim laughed on the digitally altered picture of al-Assad sitting cross-legged exterior a tent.

They may not make such jokes prior to now, they mentioned. However because the regime goes, so too does the worry and weight of oppression that many Syrians felt through the multi-decade rule of the al-Assad household.

“We’re extraordinarily pleased, particularly for the longer term generations,” Ali Jassem, 38, mentioned exterior the constructing the place he’s a concierge close to the Cola roundabout.

His spouse and kids had gone again to Deir Az Zor three months in the past as Israel’s assaults on Lebanon escalated and they’d in all probability keep on now that the regime had fallen, he mentioned.

Whereas permitting himself a second of reduction, Jassem was not able to let his guard down utterly but.

His cautious optimism meant he would maintain on to his job in Lebanon for now.

“Hopefully the approaching days are happier for everybody,” he mentioned.

Habib Abu Mahfouz contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan; Mat Nashed from Chtoura, Lebanon; and Zaid Isleem from Ankara, Turkiye.