Life after Assad is better, but only marginally

The fall of the Assad regime was not the end of suffering Syrians had dreamed of, but the beginning of a painful confrontation with reality. When I returned to my hometown of Maaret al-Numan, south of Idlib, I found my home in ruins. It felt as though the country were answering our hopes with devastation. The contrast between the dream of liberation and the reality of a homeland utterly exhausted is stark.

Residents speak most clearly of changes in security. The end of military operations and the absence of shelling have restored a degree of safety. The removal of military checkpoints and security zones has altered the character of cities such as Damascus, Latakia, Tartous and Homs. Under Assad, travel between cities meant passing through endless chains of checkpoints; profitable posts for officers and officials who routinely demanded bribes and where arbitrary arrest was a constant fear.

These improvements, however, remain uneven and fragile. Transitional justice has yet to reach the stage of holding former regime officials accountable. Efforts at social reconciliation are still tentative, if not absent altogether. Public anger remains high and is actively fuelled by groups that benefit from continued division. At the same time, unexploded ordnance continues to pose a daily threat, despite the work of mine-clearance teams.

The first year has brought only modest economic recovery. Main roads between provinces have reopened, easing trade, and small businesses have begun operating again. Markets are better supplied, and the long queues for bread, rice, cooking oil, gas, and petrol have disappeared. The relief, however, has come at a cost: prices across the board have risen sharply.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has made economic revival a central priority. His government lowered import duties, raised public sector salaries by 200 per cent, and sought to attract new investment. Yet even with these measures, the cost of living — especially rents — remains beyond the reach of most families. Poverty is widespread, unemployment remains high, and inflation has eroded the purchasing power of ordinary Syrians.

The health sector remains in deep crisis. Shortages of medical supplies, damaged infrastructure, and the high cost of private care leave patients exposed on a daily basis. The government has sought external support through agreements with international organisations and limited repair and assistance programmes, but the impact has been modest. Funding has declined, facilities continue to deteriorate, and medical professionals are still leaving the country.

Education is in no better shape. According to the Syria Response Coordinators, around 8,000 school buildings were destroyed during the war, with 7,400 still out of service. More than two million children are currently out of school, a generational loss that will outlast any short-term recovery.

Forced displacement remains one of the war’s most enduring wounds. The return of internally displaced people is essential to any long-term stability, yet hundreds of thousands remain stranded in camps across northern Syria. While some families have gone back to their towns and villages, many found nothing left to return to, and there is no money to rebuild.

Those who do return often improvise: tents pitched on the rubble of former houses, ceilings patched with plastic sheets, windows replaced by scraps of fabric. For many, return has meant exchanging life in a camp for life among ruins.

Syria has changed in appearance, though not yet in substance. The end of the fighting has brought visible improvements to streets, markets and schools, and with them a cautious sense of hope. But the deeper problems remain: economic collapse, the absence of justice, and a society still fractured by years of violence.

Assad is gone, but the road to security and social repair is long. The first year of liberation has ended a period of political paralysis. Syrians today are more aware, more outspoken and more determined. Their hope is restrained and hard-won, but it exists, and that, in itself, may mark the beginning of real change in the years ahead.