By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Umit Bektas
LATAKIA, Syria (Reuters) – Syrian cyclist Bassel Soufi rode his bike 40 kilometers from the northwestern city of Latakia on Friday to visit the Assad family on the beach as locals walked around the compound for the first time in decades.
After 54 years of ill-fated family rule and a 13-year civil war, Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday in a turning point in the Middle East.
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Since then, many properties belonging to Assad or his family have been looted or destroyed by Syrians seeking to erase his legacy.
Among them was a large family summer residence in Burj Islam. The compound, boasting a white house with balconies overlooking the Mediterranean, a private beach, several gardens, and a walkway, lay in disrepair on Friday after extensive looting and damage.
Broken windows and broken glass littered the floor, no furniture was left, while toilets, showers, lights and other things were all smashed or broken.
“I feel free for the first time in my life just to come here,” Soufi, 50, said, getting on his bike with his phone in hand to film the beach.
“I can’t believe my eyes, they’ve built something we’ve never seen like this in my whole life,” the former Syrian cyclist told Reuters, adding that he believed every commission should be for the people. and not “to another leader”.
“The Syrians, for a long time, have not been able to do anything they want. This is the first time for me,” he said.
Following the fall of Assad, local residents – mainly Syrian Turkmen displaced to nearby villages during the construction of the resort – entered the area for the first time since the Assad family built it 50 years ago.
“Everything he did he did with people’s money. If you look inside the house it’s laughable,” said Sayit Bayirli, a Free Syrian Army Turkmen soldier from the compound. He said the area where the resort was built was once an olive grove.
“A few hours after Assad fell we went in… We don’t want these views, these beautiful places to be destroyed,” he told Reuters, adding that he wanted to see the new government put in place a plan to return property. to those who belonged to it in the beginning.
Bayirli said Assad removed his valuables from the villa by sea using small boats and that FSA intelligence showed that his children were in the compound this summer.
“It was amazing fun, everyone was happy to see the place after years,” said Bayirli.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Bulent Usta and Umit Bektas; Editing by Toby Chopra)