A year after Assad's collapse, Syria battles trauma, sectarian rifts and the slow work of rebuilding

A year after Bashar Assad's fall, Syria grapples with healing from decades of repression and civil war. While former prisoner Mohammad Marwan finds life outside Saydnaya prison, the nation faces ongoing challenges with sectarian violence, stalled reconstruction, and economic hardship. Despite diplomatic overtures, rebuilding remains largely an individual effort, with many seeking better opportunities abroad.

A year ago, Mohammad Marwan found himself stumbling, barefoot and dazed, out of Syria's notorious Saydnaya prison on the outskirts of Damascus as rebel forces pushing toward the capital threw open its doors to release the prisoners.

Arrested in 2018 for fleeing compulsory military service, the father of three had cycled through four other lockups before landing in Saydnaya, a sprawling complex just north of Damascus that became synonymous with some of the worst atrocities committed under the rule of now-ousted President Bashar Assad.

He recalled guards waiting to welcome new prisoners with a gauntlet of beatings and electric shocks. "They said, 'You have no rights here, and we're not calling an ambulance unless we have a dead body,'" Marwan said.

His Dec. 8, 2024, homecoming to a house full of relatives and friends in his village in Homs province was joyful.

But in the year since then, he has struggled to overcome the physical and psychological effects of his six-year imprisonment. He suffered from chest pain and difficulty breathing that turned out to be the result of tuberculosis. He was beset by crippling anxiety and difficulty sleeping.

He's now undergoing treatment for tuberculosis and attending therapy sessions at a center in Homs focused on rehabilitating former prisoners, and Marwan said his physical and mental situations have gradually improved.

"We were in something like a state of death" in Saydnaya, he said. "Now we've come back to life."

A country struggling to heal On Monday, thousands of Syrians took to the streets to celebrate the anniver