Syrians who fled house have fun at Assad’s ouster, even though some are wary | Syria’s Conflict Information

Beirut, Lebanon – Youssef Salah and Mohammad Mahmoud exchanged glad cheek kisses from their motorbikes in Cola Roundabout, a hectic delivery hub in Beirut.

“Today is the best morning,” the smiling Mahmoud, 20, mentioned. “We feel the biggest joy,” he gestured at Ali al-Abed, 20, who used to be seated in the back of 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 purchasing breakfast from a kaak (one of those Arabic bread) seller shouted over: “Who will rule you now? The Americans, the Israelis?”

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

The 3 younger males have been beaming the morning upcoming the tip of the al-Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria upcoming 53 years.

A lightning offensive via Syrian opposition teams that freed nation in regime prisons and took weighty towns – Aleppo, Hama, Homs and in the end Damascus – took simply greater than a life.

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

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

As of the tip of November, greater than 5 million Syrians have been refugees across the pocket and tens of millions extra have been internally displaced.

Syrians who needed to escape their place of birth to leaving the violence said to Al Jazeera concerning the tumultuous emotions they awoke to on Sunday.

Echoes of cruelty

Maximum across the pocket welcomed the tip of the al-Assad dynasty.

“One heart isn’t enough to hold this great joy,” Yehya Jumaa, a Homsi in Jordan, advised Al Jazeera. “We need 10 hearts to bear this joy.”

But, the regime has fallen, however the echoes of its brutality survive in the course of the injury it has completed to a lot of its nation.

Mohammad, 33, a Homsi in Chtoura, Lebanon, mentioned 3 of his kin have been excepted from jail on Sunday, however others have been nonetheless lacking.

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

“In the past, if you approached me, I wouldn’t have talked. But now we aren’t scared,” he mentioned, status out of doors a buying groceries centre in Chtoura, about part an past’s power from Beirut.

“All the fear is gone.”

In the back of him, Syrians had a good time and chanted loudly: “God, Syria, freedom and that’s all!”

Jumaa used to be additionally saddened, he mentioned, via the situation of the prisoners who have been excepted from regime prisons.

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

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

“I was overcome with joy, with tears at the sight of the detainees … when I was in the prison cells, I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears the torture prisoners suffer, something no human can bear.”

“Many of my friends [who were arrested with him] died under torture,” Shamieh mentioned.

Going house?

In Cairo, Egypt, two younger Syrians spoke of going back on their place of birth, even if most effective certainly one of them is aging plenty to bear in mind the land he left.

Amjad, 22, is a contented guy as he went via his shift.

His Egyptian co-workers had had a good time with him, hugging and congratulating him for what took place in Syria.

“Now I can go back and live in my country,” he mentioned with tears in his seeing.

He had fled Syria two years in the past, to break out from a brutal conscription carrier that might endmost as much as 8 years as al-Assad attempted to shore up his forces.

Now, he does now not have to stick away. “As soon as my UN card expires, in two months, I will travel.”

A couple of blocks over, 16-year-old Suleyman Sukar is minding the store on the little roastery his nation co-owns.

The teenager were given negative leisure on Saturday night time because the nation waited for tendencies within the way to Damascus, but appeared alert plenty on Sunday, teeming with ideas.

He used to be most effective 4 years aging when his nation needed to escape Ghouta in 2012 as regime assaults intensified, he mentioned. So he recalls very modest of his liked Syria.

In lieu, his attachment to “home” got here in the course of the reminiscences of his folks and brothers, and thru speaking to his prolonged nation again house.

Settling in Egypt used to be now not simple for the Sukars as his folks needed to paintings abnormal jobs for seven years sooner than they stored plenty to not hidden the roastery.

But it surely does now not topic, Suleyman mentioned. Once issues have been solid in Syria, they might move house.

Suhaib al-Ahmad, a 58-year-old grocer within the Turkish capital, Ankara, has the same opinion and believes Syrians in a foreign country will have to give a contribution to the reconstruction in their place of birth.

“We must return with hearts full of hope and work to restore Syria as it was and even better,” he mentioned

“I hope this joy is a good omen for Syria and its people … I also hope Syria’s future will be bright, just as we always dreamed.”

Again at Tariq el-Jdideh, Beirut, Bishar Ahmad Nijris stood, jubilant, chatting at his fruit be on one?s feet.

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

“There’s no more oppression and we can all live as one people, without sectarianism … That’s what we want.”

Nijris may be a veteran of al-Assad’s prisons upcoming being arrested and held with out fees 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 night time – he needs to secured them quickly.

“I can go and I will go, God willing.”

Not more al-Assad bogeyman

In a restaurant in Tariq el-Jdeideh, Ahmad, from the Aleppo nation-state, scrolled via his telephone as he sipped coffee along with his cousin Ibrahim. Ahmad has now not clear Syria in 13 years however Ibrahim comes and is going.

As they chatted, any other Aleppan entered the cafe along with his 3 kids, sporting trays of baklava, a Center Jap candy, that they passed out to all of the cafe ‘s shoppers.

“Congratulations on your victory,” the cafe proprietor advised the youngsters’s father.

“Look at this,” Ahmad mentioned, scrolling via his buddies’ Fb tales. Maximum have been posts appearing the golf green, white and lightless separate Syria flag.

“Do you know where Assad is?” he requested, sooner than turning his telephone to turn a meme of the deposed Syrian president. “He’s stuck in the desert!”

Ahmad and Ibrahim laughed on the digitally altered symbol of al-Assad sitting cross-legged out of doors a tent.

They might now not produce such jokes within the future, they mentioned. However because the regime is going, so too does the worry and weight of oppression that many Syrians felt all the way through the multi-decade rule of the al-Assad nation.

“We’re extremely happy, especially for the future generations,” Ali Jassem, 38, mentioned out of doors the development the place he’s a concierge similar the Cola roundabout.

His spouse and kids had long gone again to Deir Az Zor 3 months in the past as Israel’s assaults on Lebanon escalated and they might most probably keep on now that the regime had fallen, he mentioned.

Age permitting himself a past of amusement, Jassem used to be now not able to let his preserve ill utterly but.

His wary optimism supposed he would retain directly to his activity in Lebanon for now.

“Hopefully the coming days are happier for everyone,” he mentioned.

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