Riad Sattouf signing his books in Rennes, France, last month. His masterwork series, “The Arab of the Future,” tells the story of his childhood, which was jarringly divided between the Middle East and France.
The Assad regime stopped Debra Tice from entering Syria to search for son Austin, but its downfall has helped to renew her hope
Debra Tice had managed to gather her family in one place in early December – no easy feat given they were spread across the US and Australia. When they planned their reunion months before, the Tice family had no idea they would be together to watch the Assad regime fall after a lightning 11-day rebel offensive toppled the 53-year rule.
“It was amazing for us to be together like that – it doesn’t happen often – to watch that together,” Debra said from a hotel room in Damascus. Only one member of her family was missing from the reunion, her son Austin Tice, a journalist who was kidnapped at the age of 31 in a suburb outside Damascus in 2012, while reporting on the Syrian civil war.
A new Syria is emerging from the shadow of the brutal Assad regime. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan and Ayman Abu Ramouz meet people celebrating their hard-won freedom, but also those grappling with a traumatic past. The pair travel to the notorious Sednaya prison, where they meet a former prisoner who was liberated by his family just days before
Syrian airforce helicopters dropped two cylinders of chlorine gas onto the town of Douma on 7 April 2018. At least 43 people choked to death. For six years, afraid of reprisals, the town has grieved in silence for loved ones lost to chemical attacks and countless others killed by conventional weapons.
But after an astonishing and rapid offensive by rebel forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), more than 50 years of Assad family rule collapsed last week, and the residents of Douma are finally free to tell their stories. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan travelled to the town to listen to them
Syrians returned to a mausoleum in Qardaha near Latakia that housed the remains of Hafez al-Assad, who seized control of Syria in 1970. A day after the remains of the former leader were burned by armed Islamist rebels, people fired bullets into the building and visited the charred remains. Assad ruled over Syria until 2000 in what has been described as one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East. His son, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted and fled the country after rebels captured the capital after a lightning advance completed in just under two weeks
For years, fighters and displaced people in the north-west of Syria were unable to return home to government-held territories. Thousands were greeted with teary embraces and celebratory gunfire as they reunited with their families in Damascus in its surrounding countryside.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is believed to have fled the country his family has ruled over for 50 years, after rebels said they had captured the capital after a lightning advance completed in just under two weeks. Footage from the capital, Damascus, showed rebels storming the presidential palace and destroying the Iranian embassy. State television soon declared the end of Assad's rule and celebrations erupted on the streets across Syria. In a matter of hours, queues formed at the Lebanese border with Syria as displaced families began to return to their homes
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