Tremseh residents welcomed the return of more than 180 families who had spent over a decade in exile following the fall of al-Assad. Convoys traveled from the Atmeh camp on Idlib's outskirts, bringing mattresses, furniture, motorbikes and trees. Streets filled with dancing, zaffeh music, celebratory gunfire, cellphone videos and jubilant crowds as people reunited with their homes and roots. Atmeh had housed over 80,000 people in unsanitary, miserable conditions. Many Tremseh inhabitants fled after government forces surrounded the town on July 12, 2012, when dozens of fighters and civilians were killed. Returnees described a profound sense of regained souls on coming home.
A convoy of colourful trucks carrying entire families was driving through the streets, packed to the brim with belongings mattresses, furniture and even motorbikes and trees. Some passers-by filmed with their cellphones. Others beamed with joy. A crowd danced to a zaffeh, a traditional dance and music band usually popular during weddings, while some men fired long salvoes of celebratory gunshots into the air.
Several months earlier, in December, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had been overthrown, ending a 14-year civil war. That allowed the more than 180 returning families, who had spent more than a decade in exile, to come back to their homes and their roots in Tremseh. A few hours earlier, they had left the Atmeh camp on the outskirts of Idlib, one of the largest displacement camps in the country, 150km (93 miles) north of Tremseh, where more than 80,000 people had been living in unsanitary and miserable conditions.
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