4 days ago
8
Residents successful Damascus person told of an anxious hold for quality connected what was happening successful Syria's superior metropolis overnight.
After respective hours of reports of rebels getting person and closer, the forces declared Damascus "free" of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad successful the aboriginal hours of Sunday.
Unverified videos circulating connected societal media amusement radical cheering successful the streets and welcoming the rebel fighters, arsenic good arsenic inmates being freed from the notorious Saydnaya prison.
"No-one slept successful Syria past night... nary Syrian overseas slept," Rania Kataf, who runs the Humans of Damascus Facebook page, said.
"The full assemblage was holding their phones waiting for the last news.
"How bash I feel? Overwhelmed.. We each consciousness similar we've been nether water, literally, for thirteen years, and we each conscionable took a breath.
"And I cognize that determination are truthful galore radical who are overmuch older than maine who person been done excessively much."
She said she had "mixed feelings" since the violative by rebel groups began, but that she was nary longer afraid.
In the past, she said, she had been "scared of sharing an sentiment I was truthful frightened of adjacent putting a like, putting a bosom connected idiosyncratic from the opposition."
Another Damascus resident, who asked to beryllium anonymous, told the BBC: "For the precise archetypal time, determination is simply a existent feeling of freedom."
He described celebrations successful the streets and successful Umayyad Square, a landmark successful the bosom of Damascus, and location to cardinal authorities agencies, including the Ministry of Defence and the Syrian Armed Forces.
"In the cardinal Umayyad Square, radical are celebrating successful a mode that is truthful peaceful. They're shooting fireworks. Yes we are proceeding immoderate gunshots, but it's mostly fireworks," the nonmigratory said.
"What we're feeling truly resembles what we felt during the gyration erstwhile it began successful 2011. This is the continuation of a imagination that had started that year."
He said that Syrians consciousness fearfulness and interest astir the future, but "today, each the Syrian radical volition lone celebrate."
Additional reporting by Wietske Burema
English (US)