“We are happy, but the fear is still there,” Samar said. “Why are we still afraid? Why is our happiness not complete? It is because of the fear they (the regime) carried.”
Her brother Ahmed agreed. “You can be imprisoned for simple things. I’m happy, but still worried. But we will never live under repression again.”
His father intervened to agree with him. – It is impossible.
The family lived in a small apartment where the electricity was intermittent and there was no heating.
Now that they were back, they didn’t know what to do, like many others here. More than 90% of Syria’s population is estimated to live in poverty, and there is wider concern about how HTS, which began as an al-Qaeda affiliatewill rule the country.
A woman who lived in a nearby apartment said: “No one could take away my happiness. I still can’t believe we’re back. May God protect those who returned the country.”
In the main square, one man said to me, “I really hope that we will succeed and that the violence and oppression will not return.”
In Mahmud Ali’s apartment, an “independence flag” with four red stars in the middle was painted on white paper and placed on the coffee table in the living room.
Samar, one of his daughters, told me, “We still can’t believe that Assad is gone.”
