One year after the collapse of Syria’s Baath regime, the fireworks over Umayyad Square and the chants of a liberated capital cannot drown out a quieter truth: for tens of thousands of families still searching for the disappeared, the revolution’s victory has yet to bring peace.
The fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, 2024 – ending more than six decades of Baathist rule – reshaped the country with breathtaking speed.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces swept through major cities in a lightning ten-day offensive, culminating in the storming of Damascus and Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Syria’s streets erupted in celebration; survivors of barrel bombs, starvation sieges and notorious prisons poured into public squares waving the three-star revolutionary flag.
But the euphoria soon met the hard edge of memory.
