Georgina Deiratani, a Syrian Christian who has lived in Moscow for over two decades, says she is still in shock at the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad and his escape to Russia.
"Everybody is saying 'congratulations'," said the 37-year-old, one of several thousand Syrians living in the Russian capital. "But for me this is the end of Syria."
She remembers growing up in a country where different communities lived in harmony, but makes no mention of the brutality of the half-century dictatorship of Assad and his father before him.
"We lived well together," said Deiratani, a doctor who moved to Moscow with her Russian mother after the death of her father.
This story is from the December 20, 2024 edition of The Citizen.
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This story is from the December 20, 2024 edition of The Citizen.
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