Latakia, Syria:
Syrian cyclist Bassel Soufi cycled 40 km (25 miles) from the northwestern city of Latakia on Friday to visit the Assad family’s private coastal compound, as local residents strolled the complex for the first time in decades.
After the family’s brutal 54-year rule and a 13-year civil war, Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, marking a generational change for the Middle East.
Since then, many properties belonging to Assad or his family have been looted or destroyed by Syrians seeking to erase his legacy.
This included the family’s enormous summer resort at Burj Islam. The complex, which includes a white villa with balconies overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a private beach, several gardens and a walking path, lay in disrepair on Friday after heavy looting and damage.
Windows were shattered and broken glass littered the floor, there was no furniture left, while toilets, showers, lighting and other items were all broken or destroyed.
“I feel freedom for the first time in my life just by coming here,” said 50-year-old Soufi, who arrived on his bicycle with his phone in hand to film the sea.
“I can’t believe my eyes, they have built something that we have never seen before in my entire life,” the former Syrian national team cyclist told Reuters, adding that he believes the entire complex will now be for the people must be. and not “for another president.”
“Syrians could not do what they wanted for a long time. This is the first time for me,” he said.
After Assad’s overthrow, locals – mainly Syrian Turkmen who had been displaced to nearby villages during the resort’s construction – entered the area for the first time since the Assad family built it fifty years ago.
“Everything he did, he did with the people’s money. If you look inside the villa, it’s ridiculous,” said Sayit Bayirli, a Free Syrian Army fighter of Turkmen descent at the compound. He said the land on which the resort is built used to be olive groves.
“We came in a few hours after the fall of Assad… We don’t want these views, these beautiful places to be damaged,” he told Reuters, adding that he wanted the new government to implement a system where property is returned. to those who originally owned it.
Bayirli said Assad had taken his valuables from the villa by sea in small boats and that FSA intelligence showed his children were on the property this summer.
“It was an incredible excitement, everyone was so happy to see the place again after years,” Bayirli said.
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