BBCIf the campaign to oust Bashar al-Assad was born anywhere, it was born in Daraa, a small city in Syria near the Jordanian border.
Here, on May 21, 2011, is the tortured and mutilated body of a 13-year-old boy. Hamza al-Khatib He was handed over to his family weeks after he was arrested at an anti-government demonstration.
His killing and the torture of other local teenagers for writing anti-Assad graffiti sparked widespread protests and a harsh crackdown by government forces.
If there is anyone in Daraa who should be celebrating the fall of the Assad regime, it is the Khatib family.
But when we visited today, no one in that house was celebrating.
They have just been sent screenshots of documents found in the notorious Sednaya prison, confirming that Hamza's older brother Omar – who was also arrested by police in 2019 – died in custody.
The children's mother, Samira, told me, trembling with sadness, that she was waiting for Omar to get out of prison.
“I was thinking maybe he would come today or tomorrow,” she said. “Today, I got news.”
She was dressed entirely in black, was mourning her husband who had died less than three months ago, and asked former President Bashar al-Assad to live what she lived through.
“I hope he pays the price,” she added. “And God will take revenge on him and his children.”
Her nephew, Hossam Al-Khatib, said the documents were posted on social media by people scouring Saydnaya for information about their relatives. They found Omar's file and shared it online, knowing that he was Hamza's brother.
The fall of Assad lifted the lid on decades of oppression in Syria, and most areas of Daraa took to the streets on Sunday brimming with freedom, with opposition fighters taking control of the capital, Damascus, and Assad fleeing.
Mobile phone footage shows crowds of men running around Daraa's central square in chaos of joy, screaming and shooting into the air.
This area was a major opposition stronghold under the Assad regime – fierce battles take place in schools and homes here, and village after village is eroded by tank shells and machine gun fire.
The opposition in this southern part of Syria differs from the coalition led by the hardline Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which invaded from the north and took control of the capital last week. But they met in the capital on Sunday.
The Free Syrian Army began fighting here in 2011, when harsh government crackdowns after Hamza's death convinced some officers serving in Assad's army to defect and form a rebel force.
One of them was Ahmed Al-Awda, a poet who studied English literature at university before becoming an army officer, then a rebel leader – and now a militia leader in Daraa province.
“You can't imagine how happy we are,” he told me in the nearby town of Bosra. “We have been crying for days. You cannot imagine how we feel. Everyone here in Syria lost their families. Everyone was suffering.”
Al-Awda said he was among the first to enter Damascus on Sunday, along with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham. He added that the first thing he did was go to embassies and government buildings to protect the people inside.
“We took several civilian government men to the Four Seasons Hotel and placed a large force there to protect them,” he said.
“You know it's going to be a crazy time, so I did my best to protect everyone there, even the government people. I don't want to punish them, they are Syrians.”
But he says he will not forgive Assad so easily.
He added: “I will do my best to bring him to trial to receive his punishment, because we will not forget what he did to the Syrian people, and how he destroyed Syria.”
Assad's departure has given Syria and its diverse opposition forces a fragile unity. But they no longer have a common enemy, and as outside powers continue to invest here, their differences may come under pressure.
There are fears that Syria will follow the example of Iraq and Libya and spiral into chaos.
Al-Awda said: “We saw what happened in Iraq and we reject it.”
It's not just Assad's forces he's been fighting here over the past few years. ISIS cells – which remain spread across the east of the country – also pose a threat.
Al-Awda says he fought them, leading to the killing of a senior ISIS leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi, two years ago.
Now Assad's powerful backers, Iran and Russia, are no longer working to curb ISIS, and many here worry about its resurgence.
Al-Awda insists that this will not happen. “No,” he insisted. “I expelled them. We did not expel Assad just to live under ISIS.”
He now wants free elections, believing that the Syrian people will never again choose anyone to become a dictator.
In the Daraa cemetery, the plaque on Hamza's grave was torn into pieces, broken by a government tank shell during fighting with rebel forces here, the family said.
One of his cousins said: “They continued to beat him even when he was dead.”
The neighbors watched in silence as the Syrian opposition flag was tied around Hamza's gravestone.
Behind them, the graves tell the story of 13 years of fighting: an air strike, a battle, and the killing of an entire family in their home.
The war with Assad is over, but peace in Syria has not yet been achieved.
