Roaming the opulent Damascus house of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Abu Omar felt a way of giddy defiance being within the residence of the person he stated had lengthy oppressed him.
“I’m taking photos, as a result of I’m so completely happy to be right here in the course of his home,” stated the 44-year-old, exhibiting images he took on his cell phone.
He was among the many dozens an AFP correspondent noticed Sunday getting into Assad’s house after Assad fled the nation — to Moscow based on Russian information businesses — as rebels took management of the capital in an 11-day lightning offensive.
The swift marketing campaign by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies ended greater than 5 a long time of brutal rule by the Assad household.
“I got here for revenge. They oppressed us in unimaginable methods,” Abu Omar added from the compound of three six-storey buildings within the upscale al-Maliki neighbourhood.
Jubilant males, ladies, and kids wandered the house and its sprawling backyard in a daze, the rooms stripped naked apart from some furnishings and a portrait of Assad discarded on the ground.
Residents within the Syrian capital have been seen cheering within the streets, because the insurgent factions heralded the departure of “tyrant” Assad.
The federal government fell greater than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil conflict, which has drawn in international powers, jihadists and claimed greater than half 1,000,000 lives.
– ‘Sale! Sale!’ –
On Sunday, video circulating on-line confirmed crowds peeking into the bedrooms within the Assad residence, which was beforehand off limits to extraordinary residents.
They could possibly be seen snatching garments, plates and no matter belongings they might discover together with a Louis Vuitton cardboard procuring bag.
In a single video, a person could possibly be heard yelling that all the pieces was on “Sale! Sale!”
Umm Nader, 35, got here along with her husband from a close-by district to tour the residence that after impressed concern and awe, and which one customer now described as a “museum”.
“I got here to see this place that we have been banned from, as a result of they needed us to stay in poverty and deprivation,” she informed AFP.
Nader stated the previous inhabitants of the residence had left with out slicing off the heating and electrical energy, “in the meantime our youngsters are getting sick from the chilly.”
Every day energy outages that final for hours have been a reality of life in Syria, reeling from successive financial crises after greater than a decade of conflict and Western sanctions.
Many of the inhabitants has been pushed into poverty, based on the United Nations.
An AFP correspondent additionally noticed a charred reception corridor on the Damascus presidential palace a pair kilometres away.
As he moved from room to room, Abu Omar stated he felt overjoyed.
“I now not really feel afraid. My solely concern is that we unite (as Syrians) and construct this nation collectively,” he stated, filled with emotion
