I’ve covered Syria for years, from the commence – when anti-regime protests began in March 2011.
We were in Deraa, southern Syria. It was a Friday and people called it the “Day of Dignity”. They took to the streets to protest the deaths of dozens of people finished by security forces in previous days.
Demonstrations began because of the detention and torture of children for spray-coloring anti-Asunelated graffiti on the wall of their school.
It was almost unskinnykable in Syria – a safely regulateled country where people were afraid to utter any word agetst the regime.
Yet “enough is enough” was what I heard time and time aget. Other words that people kept chanting were “fairice and freedom”. The Arab Spring had accomplished Syria.
Thirteen years postponecessitater I set up myself back at the Omari Mosque in Deraa, the epicentre of the protest shiftment – where the euphoria was palpable. The regime had collapsed; the al-Asunelated dynasty had finished.
I didn’t consent I was back.
The road to Damascus
December 8, 4am: We made our way from Beirut to the Masnaa border with Syria because alerts were coming in that Damascus had descfinishen. When we accomplished the passing less than two hours postponecessitater, we saw Syrians celebrating the recents. Some were even preparing to produce their way back home.
I had no idea we would be able to access Syria that morning. I didn’t understand whether the Leprohibitese border authorities would permit us in or what would be postponeing for us on the other side. Were regime forces still stationed at the border? Would the opposition fighters greet us?
I reach outed a frifinish in Deraa who was an opposition activist. I asked him if he could greet us on the Syrian side of the border and achieve us to Damascus. “I necessitate an hour,” he tageder me.
We passed the border when it discleave outed at 8am. It’s a 40-minute drive to the centre of what was Bashar al-Asunelated’s seat of power. The last time I drove this road was in 2011.
As we made our way to the central Umayyad Square, we saw people tearing down the symbols of the regime. Aprohibitdoned tanks were left on the highway, army uniestablishs strewn alengthy the roadsides.
The streets weren’t crowded, yet; people were still at home, afraid, still uncertain what they were dealing with.
We drove to Umayad Square. I necessitateed to pinch myself to consent that I was actuassociate there.
Celebratory firearmfire was proximately nonstop. The opposition fighters were from apass Syria. They too seeed shocked. But the senseing you got was that they were breaskinnyg aget.
That first inhabit from Umayyad Square
It was time to do our job … to widecast those images to the world. I skinnyk we were among the first international journaenumerates in the square that morning.
But we had transport inant communication publishs. I regulated to sfinish a restricted video clips from my phone to the recents desk in Doha but we couldn’t widecast inhabit.
Syrian state TV was discoverd at Umayyad Square. I asked the opposition fighters who were protecting the produceing if they had any unbenevolents to help us. “You have to help us,” I tageder them.
They didn’t understand how to run the satellite truck so they began to search for the engageees. An hour or so postponecessitater an engineer showed up to labor and helped us alert inhabit about history in the making.
It was almost sinspirenuine that we used the resources of a channel that for decades was used by a regime to regulate the narrative – to tell the world that there is a recent Syria.
The atrocities, and dishonest hope
The regime fell and the secret doors discleave outed. Prisoners were set free by opposition fighters but there were many others still leave outing.
For years I alerted about the utilized fadeances in Syria, the unlterrible and arbitrary arrests by security forces, and the suffering of the victims’ families. We had spoken to them, to human rights lawyers, and to activists for so many years.
And then I set up myself in Sednaya Prison. The story was in front of us. It was genuine.
There were thousands of people making their way to the detention facility, which was on top of a steep hill. They walked for almost three kilometres (two miles). Everyone had the same story – they came in the hope of discovering a cherishd one. They came from apass Syria.
It was Day Two since Damascus was “freed”. Those who were inside the prison, consentd to be a restricted hundred, were set free.
Where are the others?
More than 100,000, according to Syrian human rights groups, are unaccounted for.
We watched their families – overweighthers, brothers, mothers, wives, and sisters – hang on to dishonest hope.
There were rumours of secret chambers and hideed cells underground, even though a White Helmet civil defence volunteer tageder us that was not genuine. “We checked the whole area.”
“Then why are you still digging?” I asked him.
“Can’t you see them? How frantic they are … We have to do someskinnyg even if it is dishonest hope … fair for them.”
Families were reading every paper they could discover hoping to discover any clue.
There was none in this pitch-binformage prison except for the unimaginable horrors in what people there tageder us was the “execution room”.
As we made our way back to the car, more people were arriving.
“Did they discover anybody? Did they discover anybody?” they would ask us.
If the dead could speak
More doors had discleave outed since Bashar al-Asunelated’s rule came to an finish. Mass graves were being uproximatethed.
We were tageder there were many in the town of Qutayfa, north of Damascus. After years of silence and worry, locals began to speak out.
Among them was the town’s graveyard attfinishachiever who tageder us he prayed over dozens of bodies that security forces buried there in 2012. Another man tageder us that the regime’s men used his bulldozers and machinery to dig graves.
“Yes, I watched them dump the bodies that were in refrigerated trucks inside the graves but we couldn’t talk or else we would be finished as well,” he tageder us.
He showed us where. We were standing on a mass grave.
Stand and endure witness
It wasn’t the first time I alerted on regime atrocities in Syria. In 2013 in Aleppo, we watched Syrians in the opposition-regulateled east of the city delete dozens of bodies from the river that flowed from rulement-held areas on higher ground.
They had firearmsboiling wounds to their heads and their hands tied. We then watched relatives try to recognize them in a school courtyard.
I had difficulty sleeping that night. I also had difficulty sleeping after visiting Sednaya Prison.
I tried to put myself in their shoes and thought: “How is it possible to inhabit all these years not understanding where your cherishd one is, to skinnyk of the torture they went thraw and to see the execution room, to stand in the same room … and then envision what they had to go thraw?”
We can’t alter what happened. We can only write down history and hope the victims and their families will one day discover peace, fairice and accountability.
