Syrians in Sydney are celebrating the sudden end of over half a century of dictatorship in their homeland.
“This is the day we’ve been dreaming of,” said Ammr Nakour, a Sydney cafe owner who escaped the besieged Syrian city of Homs as an eight-year-old boy. “It has come at last. We had faith, we believed in it, now it is here.”
The pair, both now 22, escaped to the Lebanese port of Tripoli with their families during a brief ceasefire in Homs and made it to Australia in 2015. The cousins jointly operate a cafe in Greenacre and hope to visit Syria again one day to help rebuild. “Everyone is happy,” he said. “From talking to people in the community here, the main idea is that economically it will be better. Wages are so low you can barely buy a dozen eggs.
“The way they are presenting themselves now is moderate,” said Alrahil. “They came to my village and they spoke to our priest and said: ‘We are here to protect people and help them live a normal life’. We hope that they will continue being moderate. In Aleppo, they closed all the liquor shops, but everything else is normal.
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