Syrian fighter Sayit Bayirli guides a friend through the former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s resort in Bourj Islam, near Latakia, Syria, on Dec. 13, 2024. (Credit: Umit Bektas/ Reuters)
Syrian cyclist Bassel Soufi traveled 40 kilometers from Latakia in northwestern Syria to visit the Assad family’s private seaside resort. For the first time in decades, locals were free to wander the grounds.
After 54 years of the Assad family’s brutal rule and 13 years of civil war, Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad last Sunday, marking a generational shift in the Middle East. Since then, many properties belonging to Assad or his family have been looted or destroyed by Syrians eager to erase his legacy.
Among those properties is the vast Assad family resort in Bourj Islam. The complex, which includes a white villa with Mediterranean-facing balconies, a private beach, gardens and walking paths, stood abandoned on Friday after extensive looting and damage. Windows were shattered, debris littered the floors and furniture was gone. Bathrooms, showers, light fixtures and other fittings were broken or destroyed.
"I feel free for the first time in my life just by being here," said Soufi, 50, who arrived by bike with his phone in hand to film the sea.
"I can’t believe my eyes — they built something I had never seen in my life," the former Syrian national cycling team member told Reuters, adding that the resort should now belong to the people, not "another president."
"For so long, Syrians couldn’t do what they wanted. This is my first time experiencing this," he said.
After Assad’s overthrow, locals — mostly Syrian Turkmens displaced to nearby villages during the resort’s construction — entered the grounds for the first time in 50 years.
"Everything he did, he did with the people’s money. If you look inside the villa, it’s absurd," said Sayit Bayirli, a Turkmen fighter with the Free Syrian Army, who visited the site. He noted that the land where the complex was built used to be covered with olive groves.
"We arrived just hours after Assad fell... We didn’t want these views, these beautiful places, to be damaged," Bayirli said, expressing hope that the new government would establish a system to return the property to its original owners.
Bayirli claimed that Assad had removed valuables from the villa using small boats and that rebel intelligence revealed his children were staying at the resort this past summer.
"It was an incredible moment — everyone was so happy to see this place again after all these years," Bayirli said.
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