HOMS, Syria — A year ago Mohammad Marwan stumbled, barefoot and dazed, out of Saydnaya prison on the outskirts of Damascus as rebel forces pushed toward the capital and opened the notorious jail’s doors. Arrested in 2018 for evading compulsory military service, he had cycled through several detention centers before landing in Saydnaya, a sprawling complex tied to some of the worst abuses under the ousted Bashar Assad. He recalled guards greeting newcomers with beatings and electric shocks. “They said, ‘You have no rights here, and we’re not calling an ambulance unless we have a dead body,'” Marwan said.
He returned home to a joyful Dec. 8, 2024 reunion in his Homs province village. In the year since, however, he has struggled with the physical and psychological legacy of six years behind bars: chest pain and breathing trouble later diagnosed as tuberculosis, crippling anxiety and insomnia. He is now on TB treatment and attending therapy at a Homs center for former prisoners, and says his condition has gradually improved. “We were in something like a state of death,” he said. “Now we’ve come back to life.”
Thousands of Syrians took to the streets to mark the anniversary of Assad’s fall, but the country remains battered following 14 years of civil war that left an estimated half a million dead, millions displaced and the nation divided. Assad’s downfall shocked many, including insurgents. In late November 2024, groups in the northwest led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — whose then-leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, is now interim president — launched an offensive on Aleppo to preempt a feared government assault on Idlib. The Syrian army collapsed with little resistance in Aleppo, then Hama and Homs, opening the path to Damascus. Rebels seized Damascus on Dec. 8 while Assad was flown to Moscow by Russian forces; Russia did not intervene to defend him and has since engaged with the new rulers while keeping bases on the Syrian coast.
Hassan Abdul Ghani, spokesperson for the Syrian Ministry of Defense, said HTS and allies restructured after 2019–20 setbacks and that the Aleppo attack expanded the battlefield to protect liberated areas. He added the rebels timed the offensive when Russia was preoccupied by the war in Ukraine and Hezbollah was weakened after its war with Israel.
Since taking power, al-Sharaa has mounted a diplomatic push, repairing ties with Western and Arab states that had shunned Assad; in November he became the first Syrian president since 1946 to visit Washington. He promises a forward-looking Syria “restoring its natural position” regionally. But diplomatic wins sit alongside outbreaks of sectarian violence: hundreds from Alawite and Druze communities were killed by pro-government Sunni fighters, and local Druze groups set up a de facto government and military in Sweida. Tensions persist with Kurdish-led forces in the northeast despite a March agreement aimed at merging forces.
Israel remains wary of the new Islamist-led government, has taken a former U.N. buffer zone in southern Syria and continues airstrikes and incursions; talks on a security pact have stalled. Remnants of war are visible: the Mines Advisory Group reported at least 590 landmine deaths since Assad’s fall, including 167 children, putting Syria on track for the world’s highest landmine casualty rate in 2025.
The economy has been sluggish despite most Western sanctions being lifted. Gulf pledges to finance reconstruction have yielded little; the World Bank estimates rebuilding damaged areas will cost $216 billion. Reconstruction so far has mostly been done by individual owners repairing homes and businesses. Yarmouk Palestinian camp, heavily damaged after years of fighting and bombardment, shows slow, piecemeal returns: some shops and families are back, but the most damaged zones remain deserted and large-scale rebuilding is absent.
Many Syrians temper expectations. “They inherited an empty country — the banks are empty, the infrastructure was robbed, the homes were robbed,” said resident Etab al-Hawari. Dentist Bassam Dimashqi said there’s “freedom of some sort” now but warned that security is essential to attract investment. The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 1 million refugees and nearly 2 million internally displaced people have returned since Assad’s fall, but without jobs and reconstruction some may leave again.
Marwan says post-Assad Syria is “far better” than before, yet he struggles economically, sometimes earning only about 50,000–60,000 Syrian pounds a day (roughly $5). Once he completes TB treatment, he plans to go to Lebanon seeking better-paid work.
