A thread on the most extraordinary week in Syria. 🧵
An enormous privilege to be here and see all this. A lot of sadness. But a lot of hope too
1/ Meeting Youssef on the border. He’d fled at 17. Now 29, he was going back for the first time. Couldn’t stop smiling
2/ At the morgue, surrounded by the dead, where we met a father identifying his 20 year old son. He’d been taken just 2 months ago
3/ At Saydnaya prison, where Syrians held up the bloodied ropes that had hanged their loved ones
4/ In the offices of the secret police, finding the files the regime kept on its own officers. Assad’s spy network was notorious. ‘Should continue monitoring, because he is acting suspiciously.’
5/ In the jail cells of Syrian intelligence, with Mohammad, who was held here 12 years ago and returned with us to explore. “I can breathe now.”
6/ At a warehouse with a multi million dollar haul of Captagon. The drug that kept Assad in power, and funded the corruption to secure his alliances with Hezbollah and Iran
7/ In the Assad family home. Kids drawings. Glimpses of family life
8/ At Assad’s palace, huge marbled halls and endless rooms of chandeliers and expensive furniture
8/ In the huge basement complex underneath his home, discovering memories of the Assad family’s long ties to Russia
9/ Confronting a rebel fighter when we notice an ISIS badge on his arm
10/ Above all, with the Syrians who are at last shaking with happiness at the prospect of a life without Assad.
11/ At the ancient Saydnaya monastery for Sunday mass, where Christians are wondering what the future will mean for them… And real anger about Israeli air strikes in this area
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