Franceinfo was able to meet a family with five children who had to flee the country immediately after receiving threats.
“Today Syria is purified“: from Sunday and the fall of power in Syria, the leader of the rebels, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, hailed a victory”historical“who has”purified“Syria, speaking in the famous Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
Three days later, if residents are still celebrating the fall of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the whole world now remains attentive to the way in which these rebel troops led by Islamists, particularly towards those who worked for the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Franceinfo was able to meet a family threatened and forced to flee. There are seven of them, fear still frozen on their faces, their bodies wavering under the weight of the water cans they carry and the suitcases they drag. The father, mother and their five children had to flee without delay: “We are hungry, my children are getting sick, we have no money, we left everything at home. My children are living a life that even dogs couldn't handle.”
This mother knows that their previous life is over, that they are no longer welcome in Syria. She and her husband continue the story of these last hours. “The owner of the house cleared us like trash. He was armed, he gave us 24 hours to leave,” he says.
As a result, this family had to leave Damascus on foot to reach Lebanon. “The rebels didn’t tell us anything, didn’t threaten us. I had a weapon, they just took my weapon”he adds. So why did they flee?
After long minutes of discussion, he ended up admitting that he worked for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “I fought with Hezbollah, my weapon comes from there, explains the father. I fought for Bashar, for the Syrian regime. And when it fell, they took our names and started threatening us…”
“They wrote to us on WhatsApp telling us that all those who fought for the regime would be executed, that they would come for us, obviously we were afraid.”
The father of the familyat franceinfo
This man does not say who these people are who threatened him, nor does he name the rebel group HTS. According to several testimonies collected in Damascus, there are neighbors in certain neighborhoods who are taking this opportunity to take revenge and remove those who worked for the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
