Syria: Assad’s police threatened to bury me and my reporting. Now I’m back, and free

Eleven years ago, I left Damascus not knowing if I would ever be back.

Back then, the city was in the grip of war. Intense violence, which followed President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests, engulfed the capital. At any moment you could be shot dead on the streets.

I reported for the BBC from inside Syria on the very first protests in 2011. I reported on the “day of rage”, then on shootings, killings, disappearances, air strikes and barrel bombs – until I myself became numb and lost hope.

I was arrested several times. The regime limited my movements and threatened me, and in 2013 I had to leave.

Over the past decade, I’ve lived through a rollercoaster of hope and despair, watching my country ripped apart from abroad. Death, destruction, detention. Millions fleeing and becoming refugees.

Like many Syrians, I felt as though the world had forgotten about our country. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

When people took to the streets back then to call for the toppling of the regime, I never imagined it would actually happen, given President Assad’s powerful backers in Russia and Iran.

But on Sunday, at the blink of an eye, everything changed.