In the soft, golden light of a Damascus morning, Zeina Kanawati sits at her parents’ kitchen table, the rich aroma of Syrian coffee filling the air. For a fleeting moment, she allows herself the illusion that everything – the exile, the war, the years of watching Syria unravel from afar – had been nothing but a nightmare. But the steady hum of power cuts and the unsettling crunch of rubble underfoot on the street below quickly shatter the fantasy. Syria might have rid itself of President Bashar al-Assad, but the scars of his brutal regime are indelible and haunting.
