Syrians who fled home rejoice at Assad’s ouster, although some are cautious

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

“Today is the best morning,” the smiling Mahmoud, 20, said. “We feel the biggest joy,” he gestured at Ali al-Abed, 20, who was seated behind him.

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

A man from south Lebanon buying breakfast from a kaak (a type of Arabic bread) vendor shouted over: “Who will rule you now? The Americans, the Israelis?”

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

The three young men were beaming the morning after the end of the al-Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria after 53 years.

A lightning offensive by Syrian opposition groups that freed people in regime prisons and took big cities – Aleppo, Hama, Homs and finally Damascus – took just more than a week.

Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971, and his son Bashar succeeded him in 2000, after Hafez’s death.

Syrians rose against the regime in 2011 but faced a brutal crackdown that devolved into a war involving regional and international actors.

As of the end of November, more than five million Syrians were refugees around the region and millions more were internally displaced.

Syrians who had to flee their homeland to escape the violence spoke to Al Jazeera about the tumultuous feelings they woke up to on Sunday.

Echoes of cruelty

Most around the region welcomed the end of the al-Assad dynasty.

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

Yet, the regime has fallen, but the echoes of its brutality live on through the damage it has done to many of its people.

Mohammad, 33, a Homsi in Chtoura, Lebanon, said three of his relatives were released from prison on Sunday, but others were still missing.

However, Mohammad said, the veil of fear of speaking the truth had lifted.

“In the past, if you approached me, I wouldn’t have talked. But now we aren’t scared,” he said, standing outside a shopping centre in Chtoura, about half an hour’s drive from Beirut.

“All the fear is gone.”

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

Jumaa was also saddened, he said, by the state of the prisoners who were released 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 is also in Jordan, said he, too, had experienced al-Assad’s prisons when he was taken as a high school student 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 said.

Going home?

In Cairo, Egypt, two young Syrians spoke of returning to their homeland, even though only one of them is old enough to remember the land he left.

Amjad, 22, is a happy man as he went through his shift.

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

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

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

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

A few blocks over, 16-year-old Suleyman Sukar is minding the shop at the small roastery his family co-owns.

The teen got no sleep on Saturday night as the family waited for developments in the approach to Damascus, yet seemed alert enough on Sunday, teeming with thoughts.

He was only four years old when his family had to flee Ghouta in 2012 as regime attacks intensified, he said. So he remembers very little of his beloved Syria.

Instead, his attachment to “home” came through the memories of his parents and brothers, and through talking to his extended family back home.

Settling in Egypt was not easy for the Sukars as his parents had to work odd jobs for seven years before they saved enough to open the roastery.

But it does not matter, Suleyman said. As soon as things were stable in Syria, they would go home.

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

Nijris is also a veteran of al-Assad’s prisons after being arrested and held without charges for two months in Mezzeh prison in 2013.

He hails from Israel-occupied Golan Heights, where his wife and children travelled to on Saturday night – he wants to join them soon.

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

No more al-Assad bogeyman

In a cafe in Tariq el-Jdeideh, Ahmad, from the Aleppo countryside, scrolled through his phone as he sipped espresso with his cousin Ibrahim. Ahmad has not seen Syria in 13 years but Ibrahim comes and goes.

As they chatted, another Aleppan entered the cafe with his three children, carrying trays of baklava, a Middle Eastern sweet, that they handed out to all the cafe ‘s clients.

“Congratulations on your victory,” the cafe owner told the children’s father.

“Look at this,” Ahmad said, scrolling through his friends’ Facebook stories. Most were posts showing the green, white and black free Syria flag.

“Do you know where Assad is?” he asked, before turning his phone to show a meme of the deposed Syrian president. “He’s stuck in the desert!”

Ahmad and Ibrahim laughed at the digitally altered image of al-Assad sitting cross-legged outside a tent.

They could not make such jokes in the past, they said. But as the regime goes, so too does the fear and weight of oppression that many Syrians felt during the multi-decade rule of the al-Assad family.

“We’re extremely happy, especially for the future generations,” Ali Jassem, 38, said outside the building where he is a concierge near the Cola roundabout.

His wife and children had gone back to Deir Az Zor three months ago as Israel’s attacks on Lebanon escalated and they would probably stay on now that the regime had fallen, he said.

While allowing himself a moment of relief, Jassem was not ready to let his guard down completely yet.

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

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

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