Syrians in Saskatchewan respond to Assad's fall with cautious optimism

Syrian Canadians across Saskatchewan are reacting to the historic collapse of the Assad regime over the weekend.

"We were all happy about it because we were waiting for this for a very, very long time," said Ali Kharsa, a Syrian refugee in Saskatoon. "Honestly most of the Syrians, especially the older Syrians, felt it. They felt the Syrian regime will fall down, it would just lose one day."

Kharsa left his home country in 2011, traveling to Malaysia and then Australia as a refugee before arriving in Canada in 2015.

Originally from Aleppo, a major Syrian city close to the Turkish border, Kharsa said he still has friends and relatives in Syria, and they are celebrating the fall of the regime.

"This is all because of this one person, and it's Bashar al-Assad and his government," he said about what he's experienced over the last decade. 

"Is it going to become a better country? For me as a Syrian Canadian, am I gonna be able to visit my country and rebuild my house, and do something good for my country in the future? No one really knows yet."

The Syrian civil war first erupted in March 2011 as part of an uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. For more than 13 years the Syrian government was at war with an alliance of rebel factions and Islamist groups across the country.

After a years-long stalemate, rebel forces swept into the capital city of Damascus on Dec. 7, collapsing the government. Russian media reports Bashar al-Assad, who ruled the country for 24 years, has fled to Moscow.

More than six million people fled Syria after the war began, leading to one of the largest refugee crises of the 21st century. According to the 2021 census, there were 97,590 Syrian-born Canadians, including refugees. Of those, 1,405 live in Saskatchewan.

Syrian-Canadian Noor Mitri owns a cafe in downtown Regina. He immigrated to Canada before the war began, and has witnessed the growth of his diaspora community first hand.

"I hope that we see less and less of this sentiment of tribalism that we're seeing," he said. "Let us find a way through truth and knowledge to build Syria forward."

Mitri still has family in Syria, including Damascus and Aleppo, which both were captured by rebel forces over the last week.

"Everybody is safe, afraid in a sense. It's a kind of a wave if you're in the middle of it," he said.

In Saskatoon, University of Saskatchewan professor Rana Mustafa said he feels similarly hopeful about Syrians avoiding sectarian division. Before arriving in Canada, Mustafa taught at Al-Baath University in Syria.

"We are resilient, we are different, and our strength is in our differences and diversity," she said.

Several groups are now vying for control of Syria with al-Assad's departure. The most powerful faction is the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. It is considered a terrorist organization by Canada and the U.S.

In a statement, federal Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said, "Canada welcomes the end of the Assad regime in Syria, a regime that has inflicted decades of suffering on its own people."