With the Assad regime gone, Douma is coming back to life. Markets are bustling in the East Ghouta city, as construction workers repair damaged buildings and displaced residents return to visit or settle down.
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.
As the situation in and around Damascus rapidly changed throughout the day on Saturday, three civilians in and around the capital told Syria Direct what they were seeing, hearing and feeling.
The view from the ground in the East Ghouta suburbs of Damascus is one of a worried regime withdrawing its forces from the interior of cities and reinforcing checkpoints on their outskirts “for fear of being targeted,” residents say.
Eight years after regime institutions returned to Moadamiyat al-Sham, the city just outside Damascus remains marginalized, with poor electricity, water, bread and public transportation services.
In Dumayr, a town northeast of Damascus that returned to regime control under a settlement agreement six years ago, residents are asked to donate to fund basic public service projects in place of the state.
In al-Hajar al-Aswad, south of Damascus, buildings are steadily being demolished—regardless of whether they are structurally sound—with the rubble sold for profit under the eyes of regime forces. Some fear demolitions could be a precursor to expropriations under redevelopment plans.
