Horn concert in the streets of Toulouse, during the night of this Saturday to Sunday, December 8, 2024. The Syrian community celebrated the end of the regime of Bashar al-Assad after the rebels entered Damascus. “It’s good for us, it’s so good,” tells us a Syrian refugee, who arrived in Toulouse in 2016. Testimony.
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“It’s a big day for us“, Abd Alraham tells us. This Syrian refugee, who fled his country with one of his brothers and his mother in 2016, celebrated in Toulouse, upon the announcement of the departure of Bashar al-Assad and the “entry of the rebels into Damascus on the evening of December 7.”We went out, we danced. It’s too good for us“, he confides on the phone.
Abd Alraham says he hasn’t slept for four days. He has been glued to the television for four days following the situation in Syria. And this Sunday, he recognizes that “it’s a bit weird.” As if he had difficulty believing in the end of the al-Assad regime. “I was always there, thinking, telling myself if it doesn’t work, al-Assad will stay forever.“
Portraits of Bashar al-Assad trampled after the announcement of the Syrian dictator’s flight on December 8, 2024.
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© Kemal Aslan / AFP
Bashar al-Assad took power by becoming president of the Syrian Arab Republic on July 17, 2000. He thus perpetuated the dictatorship of his father, Hafez el-Assad. “We’ve been afraid for 55 years. We can’t talk. I was in the military before. When the revolution started, I left Syria. And now maybe I’ll be able to go home“, Abd Alraham tells us today.
The entry of rebels, led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), into Damascus, the departure of Bashar al-Assad and the release of inmates from the infamous Sednaya prison where thousands of prisoners were sent opponents of the regime. This is good news for Abd Alraham. “There are many people who were thought dead until yesterday and who have been released from prison“, he tells us.
Shots in the air by Syrian rebels to celebrate their entry into Damascus and the departure of Bashar al-Assad, December 8, 2024.
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© Muhammad Haj Kadour / AFP
Enough to hasten his return to Syria? Abd Alraham is from the city of Homs. “There, our apartment is destroyed. The whole neighborhood is on the groundhe tells us. But this is our country. We’re going back“The refugee admits not having asked too many questions about those who will take back the reins of power.”I don’t know who will take this. The first thing I focused on was the departure of Bashad al-Assad.“A departure that Abd Alraham and other members of the Syrian community should still celebrate this Sunday in Toulouse during a gathering in town.
