From Toronto to Damascus: Syrians return home aiming to rebuild country

Damascus, Syria – When the al-Assad regime fell in December 2024, Yasseen Tasabehji and his family did not originally plan on returning to Syria.Tasabehji, now 33, his four siblings and his parents had moved to Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto in Canada, in 2010, a year before the start of the Syrian uprising and subsequent war. They’d built what Tasabehji describes as a “quite good” life and didn’t plan on ever returning.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Why Saudi Arabia holds the key to Palestinian statehoodlist 2 of 3Fragile peace in Syria’s Set Zaynab as sectarian challenges persistlist 3 of 3Iran hits US in Jordan, US-Saudi strikes on Iraq: Is war spreading?end of listDuring the war years, his mother returned once to visit family, but the rest of the family did not.“The Syrian file was just closed for all of us,” Tasabehji told Al Jazeera. “We had the feeling that we would never go back.”Then, in late 2024, a rebel operation took Aleppo from the al-Assad regime and carried on to Hama and Homs. Within a matter of days, the al-Assad family had fled to Moscow and the Syrian opposition were celebrating the liberation of Damascus.For Tasabehji and his family, a “Pandora...