ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Dozens of families from Eastern Ghouta outside of Damascus returned on Sunday for the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last month, after years of forced displacement during the country’s civil war. A passenger bus arrived at the Harasta garage in Damascus after a seven-hour drive, carrying approximately fifty families of elderly people who had been displaced for several years by the previous Syrian regime. "I left Syria with my head held high, meaning I didn't flee, and I also returned with my head held high after the liberation and victory that happened like a dream within 12 days," Osama Numan, a displaced man from Eastern Ghouta, told Rudaw’s Hafez Taraman. His family was one of many forcibly displaced from their homes in Eastern Ghouta. The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions to flee their homes, leaving many displaced families without shelter. "The journey back, no matter how far it was, felt like it only took ten minutes, compared to the distances we used to cover there [in displacement] in the mountains," Numan added. In 2018, the people of Eastern Ghouta were subjected to relentless attacks by Syrian regime forces attempting to take the area back from rebel forces. The area was under siege, leading to extreme shortages of food and medicine. Relentless strikes by regime forces, with Russian backing, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and left many more displaced. Most of the elderly were living in difficult conditions away from their homes, some of them no longer having houses after their homes were destroyed due to bombardment by the previous regime. "Until now we don't know anything, but we had prior knowledge that all houses were destroyed. I have a house that was completely destroyed, and I also have a building that needs a lot of work,” Hassan Shaker, another who was also displaced from Eastern Ghouta, told Rudaw. A coalition of rebel groups, spearheaded by the Islamist Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ousted Assad on December 8 days after launching a blistering offensive. They set up a transitional government with its de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, repeatedly promising that the rights of all components in Syria would be protected.
