In Homs, Smiles and Tears Amid a Ravaged Landscape After al-Assad’s Fall

Members of the household ducked underneath an empty doorway and stepped over the rubble from their residence.

“It’s surprising, actually surprising,” stated Abdulrahman Alama, 37, as he stared on the broken residence. A refugee in Lebanon for 13 years because the begin of Syria’s civil conflict, he had returned to Homs and was visiting the household residence together with his sister and one other relative only a week after the autumn of President Bashar al-Assad. Any pleasure was tempered by the sight of their residence.

“I don’t wish to ship a photograph to my father as a result of it’s too surprising,” he stated.

Days after the lightning-fast insurgent offensive that ousted Mr. al-Assad, Syrians are going again residence by the hundreds, amongst them refugees, the internally displaced and detainees rising from prisons. And residents are shaking off the phobia of dwelling underneath dictatorship.

In Homs, folks have been reacting with each smiles and tears, thanking God and continuously cursing their former president.

Much of Syria was devastated by Mr. al-Assad’s brutal combat to suppress a well-liked rebellion and maintain on to energy. Homs, an historical metropolis in central Syria the place protesters have been the primary to take up weapons in 2011 towards his oppression, grew to become a middle of resistance.