Beirut, Lebanon – Youssef Salah and Mohammad Mahmoud exchanged joyful cheek kisses on their motorcycles in the Cola Roundabout, a busy traffic hub in Beirut.

“Today is the best morning,” said a smiling Mahmoud, 20. “We feel the greatest joy,” he pointed to 20-year-old Ali al-Abed, who was sitting behind him.

“We come from Deir Az Zor,” said al-Abed, adding: “Free Deir Az Zor, write it down like this!”

A man from southern Lebanon bought breakfast from a kaak (a type of Arabic bread) vendor and shouted, “Who will rule you now? The Americans, the Israelis?”

“I don’t know, but it’s been 13 years,” Mahmoud shouted back. “Khalas (enough)!”

The three young men were beaming on the morning after the end of the Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria after 53 years.

A lightning offensive by Syrian opposition groups that released people in regime prisons and captured major cities – Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eventually Damascus – lasted just over a week.

Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971 and his son Bashar succeeded him in 2000 after Hafez’s death.

Syrians rose up against the regime in 2011 but faced a brutal crackdown that led to war between regional and international actors.

At the end of November, more than five million Syrians in the region were refugees and millions more were internally displaced.

Syrians forced to flee their homeland to escape violence spoke to Al Jazeera about the tumultuous feelings they woke up with on Sunday.

Echoes of cruelty

Most people in the region welcomed the end of the Assad dynasty.

“One heart is not enough to hold this great joy,” Yehya Jumaa, a Homsi in Jordan, told Al Jazeera. “We need 10 hearts to carry this joy.”

Nevertheless, the regime has fallen, but the echoes of its brutality live on through the damage it inflicted on many of its population.

Mohammad, 33, a Homsi from Chtoura, Lebanon, said three of his relatives were released from prison on Sunday but others were still missing.

However, Mohammad said the veil of fear of telling the truth has been lifted.

“If you had approached me earlier, I wouldn’t have spoken. But now we are no longer afraid,” he said as he stood outside a shopping center in Chtoura, about half an hour’s drive from Beirut.

“All fear is gone.”

Behind him, the Syrians cheered and shouted loudly: “God, Syria, freedom and that’s all!”

Jumaa was also saddened by the condition of prisoners released from the regime’s prisons, he said.

“So many had no idea what was going on for years. Some thought it was (late Iraq strongman) Saddam Hussein who freed them.”

Aleppan Abdelmonieim Shamieh, who also lives in Jordan, said he too experienced al-Assad’s prisons when he was arrested as a high school student in 1982.

“I was overwhelmed with joy, overwhelmed with tears at the sight of the prisoners… When I was in the prison cells, I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears the torture the prisoners endure, something that no human being can endure.”

“Many of my friends (who were arrested with him) died under torture,” Shamieh said.

Go home?

In Cairo, Egypt, two young Syrians spoke of returning to their homeland, although only one of them is old enough to remember the country he left.

Amjad, 22, is a happy man who has completed his shift.

His Egyptian colleagues were happy for him, hugged him and congratulated him on the events in Syria.

“Now I can go back and live in my country,” he said with tears in his eyes.

He fled Syria two years ago to avoid brutal military service that could last up to eight years as al-Assad sought to strengthen his forces.

Now he doesn’t have to stay away. “As soon as my UN card expires in two months, I will travel.”

A few blocks away, 16-year-old Suleyman Sukar runs the small roastery that his family owns.

The teenager was unable to sleep on Saturday evening as the family awaited developments on the approach to Damascus, but appeared awake enough and teeming with thoughts on Sunday.

He said he was only four years old when his family had to flee Ghouta in 2012 as regime attacks increased. As a result, he remembers very little about his beloved Syria.

Instead, his attachment to “home” came through the memories of his parents and brothers and through conversations with his extended family at home.

It wasn’t easy for the Sukars to settle in Egypt, as his parents had to do odd jobs for seven years before they saved enough money to open the roastery.

But that doesn’t matter, Suleyman said. As soon as the situation in Syria was stable, they would go home.

Suhaib al-Ahmad, a 58-year-old grocer in the Turkish capital Ankara, agrees and believes Syrians abroad should help rebuild their homeland.

“We must return with hearts full of hope and work to make Syria the way it was and even better,” he said

“I hope that this joy is a good omen for Syria and its people… I also hope that the future of Syria will be bright, as we have always dreamed of.”

Back in Tariq el-Jdideh, Beirut, Bishar Ahmad Nijris stood cheering and chatting at his fruit stand.

“It’s a victory for the whole world,” said Nijris, 41.

“There is no more oppression and we can all live as one people, without sectarianism… That’s what we want.”

Nijris is also a veteran of Assad prisons, having been arrested in 2013 and held without charge in Mezzeh prison for two months.

He comes from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where his wife and children traveled on Saturday evening – he wants to join them soon.

“I can go and I will go, God willing.”

No more Al-Assad bogeyman

At a cafe in Tariq el-Jdeideh, Ahmad, from rural Aleppo, scrolled through his phone while drinking an espresso with his cousin Ibrahim. Ahmad hasn’t seen Syria for 13 years, but Ibrahim comes and goes.

As they chatted, another Aleppan entered the cafe with his three children, carrying trays of baklava, a Middle Eastern sweet, which they distributed to all of the cafe’s customers.

“Congratulations on your win,” the café owner said to the children’s father.

“Look at this,” Ahmad said, scrolling through his friends’ Facebook stories. Most were posts displaying the green, white and black flag of free Syria.

“Do you know where Assad is?” he asked, before turning his phone to show a meme of the deposed Syrian president. “He’s stuck in the desert!”

Ahmad and Ibrahim laughed at the digitally altered image of al-Assad sitting cross-legged in front of a tent.

They said they couldn’t have made jokes like that before. But the further the regime goes, the greater the fear and weight of oppression that many Syrians felt during the al-Assad family’s decades-long rule.

“We are extremely happy, especially for future generations,” said Ali Jassem, 38, in front of the building where he works as a concierge near the Cola roundabout.

His wife and children returned to Deir Az Zor three months ago as Israel’s attacks on Lebanon escalated, and they would likely remain there after the regime fell, he said.

While Jassem allowed himself a moment of relief, he wasn’t ready to let his guard down entirely.

His cautious optimism meant he would keep his job in Lebanon for now.

“Hopefully the coming days will be happier for everyone,” he said.

Habib Abu Mahfouz contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan; Mat Nashed from Chtoura, Lebanon; and Zaid Isleem from Ankara, Türkiye.