Reda al-Khedr was solely 5 when his mom escaped the siege of Homs in 2014. A decade later in Cairo, he can hardly consider the Syrian authorities that killed his father has fallen.
“I can barely keep in mind Syria,” Khedr, now 15, advised AFP within the Egyptian capital.
“However now we’ll go residence to a liberated Syria. We’re finished with Bashar al-Assad and his corrupt regime,” he stated on Sunday, nonetheless blinking in disbelief at insurgent teams’ lightning offensive that toppled the Assad household’s five-decade rule earlier within the day.
Khedr’s father, who disappeared in 2014, was confirmed killed final yr, mere months earlier than insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham opened jail after jail, liberating hundreds.
“Perhaps he would have been freed too,” lamented {the teenager}, who calls himself a part of Syria’s “new era that can rebuild even higher than earlier than”.
Since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests sparked the civil battle, round 1.5 million Syrians have sought shelter in Egypt, in response to United Nations estimates based mostly on authorities information.
Round 150,000 are registered refugees with the UN.
In western Cairo on Sunday, the place Syrian companies have clustered, the air buzzed with celebration.
“The workforce is so completely satisfied half of them did not present as much as work,” stated one supervisor of a Syrian restaurant.
“They spent all evening celebrating. Now we’re short-staffed,” he advised AFP over his shoulder, dashing to prospects.
– ‘First meal in Damascus’ –
Mohamed Feras, a 32-year previous gross sales clerk in a close-by retailer, spent all evening and properly into Sunday afternoon together with his eyes glued to the information.
He peeled his gaze away simply lengthy sufficient to say: “I have not seen my household in 13 years. Now I can lastly go residence.”
Like numerous others, Feras — then 19 — fled throughout borders to flee Syria’s obligatory navy service.
“Now my household’s already asking me what I would like my first meal in Damascus to be,” he advised AFP, his voice giddy with pleasure.
For the hundreds of Syrian entrepreneurs who established companies and set down roots in Egypt, returning “will not occur in a single day,” 36-year-old chef Mohamed al-Shami advised AFP, “however we are going to return”.
Shami — a enterprise pupil again in Syria earlier than taking a Cairo restaurant job — stated his household residence close to Damascus “was shelled to the bottom, however we’ll construct it again up”.
– ‘Want he may see this’ –
Shami, like others who spoke to AFP, is aware of challenges lie forward however has religion in his fellow Syrians scattered internationally.
“I’ve by no means misplaced hope and I am not scared now,” he stated, including that he “I knew today was coming and I do know what’s coming cannot be worse than what we have left behind.”
For Shawkat Ahmed, a 35-year previous supervisor at a confectionery retailer, “there isn’t any turning again now,” regardless of “some fears of chaos taking maintain”.
His first response, he stated, was questioning “what occurred to Bashar, did they kill him or did he run away like a cockroach?”
Others felt the twinge of grief of their pleasure.
Yassin Nour, 30, stated he has spent practically half his life within the shadow of the “destruction, killing, displacement and terror” that adopted the Syrian rebellion.
“I am unable to assist however consider my good friend who referred to as for freedom 15 years in the past. I want he (was alive to) see this,” the Aleppo native advised AFP.
And for Egyptians who’ve grown accustomed to residing facet by facet with Syrians, the celebration is barely bittersweet.
“You possibly can’t simply go away us now,” one Egyptian patron advised a Syrian vendor in a confectionery.
Handing him free samples, which he referred to as “victory sweets”, the vendor promised, “you will go to us in a free Syria”.
