They poured by the thousands into the street outside Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria, celebrating the toppling of the Assad regime — and their long-awaited return home.
People, many of whom had fled Syria during the country’s 13-year civil war, cheered, honked their cars’ horns and set off fireworks into the air as they inched toward the Masna’a border crossing. Men jumped on top of cars to shout curses at the former president, Bashar al-Assad, and his family. Others hung out of car windows, waving the flag of the Syrian opposition and holding their fingers up in a V for victory.
Songs written during the Syrian uprising to cheer on the fall of Mr. al-Assad blasted from car speakers, their lyrics no longer fantasy.
“I don’t have words for how I feel right now. Joy, joy, all joy,” said Khitam Chiha, 23, standing on the sidewalk as the parade of cars and people passed. Red, green and white eye shadow — the colors of the Syrian opposition’s flag — were painted across her eyelids and she held a large flag in her hand.
Since Ms. Chiha came to Lebanon as an 11-year-old, any time she passed the border crossing at Masna’a, she was seized by a sense of fear, she said. This was the first time she had ever looked back at her homeland and felt hope. Her family planned to wait for the traffic to subside at the border and then head back to their home in Damascus — back to a life that Ms. Chiha barely remembers, she said.
“My parents used to tell me it’s beautiful, it’s like paradise” in Damascus, she said. “I want to see everything in Damascus, everything.”
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