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New Year brings Syrians fresh hope - 13th January 2025

New Year celebrations in Damascus, Syria, held deeper meaning this year after the events of 8th December 2024, when rebel forces descended on the Syrian capital. This led to President Assad and his family fleeing the country, ending over 50 years of a brutal political system.

General Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 and was followed by his son Bashar al-Assad in 2000. With the changes wrought by the Arab Spring 2011, a complex civil war took hold and more than six million Syrians have been forced to flee. Over the same period, 580,000 were killed, including 306,000 non-combattants.

Yamamah al-Ubaid is a Syrian activist.

Yamamah al-Ubaid: "Today is the first day of 2025. Last year, the Syrian people witnessed an important event - the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the end of the Assad era, which lasted 54 years. However, we will not forget and we will continue to remember and demand that all officials whose hands were stained with the blood of the Syrian people be held accountable."

Hayat Tahir al-Shan (HTS) is the dominant group of the rebel alliance that brought down the Assad regime, and is headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa. HTS began as a breakaway group of al-Qaeda, and is listed as a terrorist organisation in a number of countries. Now, al-Sharaa is calling for HTS to be taken off the list, denying that he intends to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan.

Although not all Syrians believe that HTS has separated from its extremist past, others such as student Nour Haloum, hope that 2025 will see their basic rights restored at last.

Nour Haloum: "We are now witnessing the first moments of 2025 and we hope that the country's situation will improve and its institutions will reopen. That all things become easy for citizens and we can obtain our rights. We do not want more than that, just our basic rights."

The actions of the nation's new leaders will be examined in the coming months, by Syrians inside and also outside their country.