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Rania Kataf<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nResidents in Damascus have told of an anxious wait for news on what was happening in Syria’s capital city overnight.<\/p>\n After several hours of reports of rebels getting closer and closer, the forces declared Damascus “free” of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in the early hours of Sunday.<\/p>\n Unverified videos circulating on social media show people cheering in the streets and welcoming the rebel fighters, as well as inmates being freed from the notorious Saydnaya prison. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n “No-one slept in Syria last night… no Syrian abroad slept,” Rania Kataf, who runs the Humans of Damascus Facebook page, said.<\/p>\n “The whole community was holding their phones waiting for the final news.<\/p>\n “How do I feel? Overwhelmed.. We all feel like we’ve been under water, literally, for thirteen years, and we all just took a breath.<\/p>\n “And I know that there are so many people who are much older than me who have been through too much.”<\/p>\n She said she had “mixed feelings” since the offensive by rebel groups began, but that she was no longer afraid.<\/p>\n In the past, she said, she had been “scared of sharing an opinion I was so scared of even putting a like, putting a heart on someone from the opposition.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Another Damascus resident, who asked to be anonymous, told the BBC: “For the very first time, there is a true feeling of freedom.”<\/p>\n He described celebrations in the streets and in Umayyad Square, a landmark in the heart of Damascus, and home to key government agencies, including the Ministry of Defence and the Syrian Armed Forces.<\/p>\n “In the central Umayyad Square, people are celebrating in a way that is so peaceful. They’re shooting fireworks. Yes we are hearing some gunshots, but it’s mostly fireworks,” the resident said. <\/p>\n “What we’re feeling really resembles what we felt during the revolution when it began in 2011. This is the continuation of a dream that had started that year.”<\/p>\n He said that Syrians feel fear and worry about the future, but “today, all the Syrian people will only celebrate.”<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Wietske Burema<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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