Wassim Qaddoura in Damascus on Sept. 23, 2025. (Credit: Soulayma Mardam Bey/L’Orient-Le Jour)
On the night of Dec. 7, 2024, his eyes were glued to the news. At the moment of the official announcement, Wassim Qaddoura couldn't believe it. A refugee in Kassel, Germany since 2016, he had lost hope of seeing Syria again. And then, suddenly, the unimaginable happened. After nearly fourteen years of war and half a century of rule, the Assad regime fell. Across the country, giant portraits of father and son were torn down. Statues were toppled. Walls were repainted to cover the traces of yesterday's world, and the Baathist Syrian flag — with its red, white, and black stripes and two green stars — was swapped for the flag of the revolution (which was also Syria's flag after independence). "What I felt was indescribable," recalls Qaddoura.Born to a Syrian father and a Palestinian mother, he grew up in Douma, a suburb...
On the night of Dec. 7, 2024, his eyes were glued to the news. At the moment of the official announcement, Wassim Qaddoura couldn't believe it. A refugee in Kassel, Germany since 2016, he had lost hope of seeing Syria again. And then, suddenly, the unimaginable happened. After nearly fourteen years of war and half a century of rule, the Assad regime fell. Across the country, giant portraits of father and son were torn down. Statues were toppled. Walls were repainted to cover the traces of yesterday's world, and the Baathist Syrian flag — with its red, white, and black stripes and two green stars — was swapped for the flag of the revolution (which was also Syria's flag after independence). "What I felt was indescribable," recalls Qaddoura.Born to a Syrian father and a Palestinian mother, he grew up in Douma, a...
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