“It is 6:18 am in Damascus, Syria is free of Bashar al-Assad.” With these words, Hussein Al-Sheikh announced on Al-Hadath TV the fall of the Assad regime on the morning of 8 December 2024. When he fled, it liberated Syrians from a tyranny whose full horrors are still being discovered.
Every day brings forth a new atrocity, a fresh mass grave, another account of torture and killing that defies even the darkest imagination: children torn from their families, erased with the stroke of an official’s pen, then sold—quite literally—by Assad’s men. Reduced to commodities, detainees were trafficked, their organs harvested.
Back in December, prison doors swung open, and the living emerged, yet the fate of tens of thousands remains unknown. Stories began to surface from Saydnaya Prison and the Far’ Falastin (Branch 235). The world saw where and how the harrowing photographs of Caesar (the famous whistleblower) were taken. Hearing the stories, many had turned a deaf ear, refusing to believe what they were told.
Gates still closed
Seven months have now passed since liberation, and Syrians are returning to life, yet not all prison gates have yielded their secrets and detainees, some of whom remain deprived of the most basic conditions for survival. Around 170 detainees, imprisoned over their involvement in the Syrian revolution, continue to languish in Lebanon’s Roumieh Prison, still awaiting freedom, still longing to return home.
The extent of Assad’s arbitrary arrests and brutal torture has slowly become known, but less well known is that some Syrians have died under torture on Lebanese soil. Though the region has seen huge change, Lebanon’s political structure remains stuck on repeat. It is as if, deep down, some there refuse to believe that Bashar al-Assad has truly gone and are simply awaiting his return, eager to prove their loyalty.
