Ammar Hamou

Damascus residents speak with a new tone, using new words, as entrenched fears unravel with the fall of the Assad regime. Still, concerns remain about what awaits in a new Syria.

In the chaotic, jubilant process of emptying Assad’s prisons—including the notorious Saydnaya on the outskirts of Damascus—misinformation has spread and crucial evidence has been tampered with, SNHR’s Nour al-Khatib tells Syria Direct.

For journalists, northeastern Syria is a minefield of unspoken red lines. While the AANES says it is committed to freedom of the press, restrictions have proliferated in recent years.

Atia Abu Salem, a Syrian refugee in Jordan arrested on his way to a pro-Gaza demonstration this month, is facing deportation. The families of “many Syrians” among the more than 1,500 people detained amid recent protests are keeping quiet, afraid of “escalation.”

When Suwayda’s protest movement began in August 2023, it met with echoes on the Syrian coast, where “a chorus of individual voices” openly criticized the regime from a region considered Assad’s base. But while Suwayda’s uprising continues, the voice of the coast has waned. Why?

Nearly 13 years after the revolution, Syrians continue to flee the country—this time for economic reasons. In regime-held Hama city, financial hardship is driving a renewed wave of migration, as residents sell homes and property to fund a way out.

Residents of Syria’s opposition-held northwest demonstrate in support of Palestinians facing displacement and bombardment in Gaza—an experience many of them share.

On the twelfth anniversary of the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, “everything is different on the ground from what it was the first year,” its course far from the aspirations of those who took part.

Racing against time, civilian survivors of the earthquake in northwestern Syria helped search through the rubble, bury the dead and care for the living this week, driven by feelings of responsibility for their community and the lack of an immediate international response.

Rescue teams in several countries have mobilized to help Turkey rescue the victims of Monday’s devastating earthquake, but so far no aid or personnel have entered northwestern Syria, where residents are turning to displacement camps as a refuge.