Jenna Alsaloum, 6, left; Momen Alsaloum; Sultan Alsaloum, 3; Riad Alsaloum, 8; Caroline Al Horani, 4; Qusai Al Horani; and Amin Alsaloum, 10, gather Saturday outside the apartment building where they live in Augusta. Momen Alsaloum says he and his family have been monitoring world news every day and are elated that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

AUGUSTA — Osama Oudeh was watching the television news last Sunday when a story flashed onto the screen from his native country.

Syrian rebels had taken Damascus. Bashar al-Assad, the leader of the Syrian dictatorship, had fled to seek asylum in Russia.

The Assad regime had fallen.

Oudeh was delighted. His new American friends called and texted, celebrating with him.

Other Syrians took to the streets in and around Augusta’s Sand Hill neighborhood, waving flags and celebrating the rebel victory.

In Syria, widespread celebrations were underway early last Sunday. Syrian streets have been filled with celebratory gunfire since a stunning rebel advance reached the capital city of Damascus, ending the Assad family’s 50 years of oppressive rule.

Qusai Al Horani sits Saturday at his friend Momen Alsaloum’s apartment in Augusta. The two men say they had to flee Syria after the outbreak of war. They are now neighbors in Augusta. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Bashar al-Assad’s regime was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 200,000 Syrian civilians from the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March 2011 to June 2024, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Syrian regime forces killed 15,102 people through torture and arrested or “forcibly disappeared” at least more than 136,000 people, including 3,700 children and 8,500 women.

Momen Alsaloum plays Saturday with his youngest son, Sultan, 3, at their apartment in Augusta. Momen Alsaloum says he and his family have been monitoring world news every day and are elated that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

The United Nations estimates more than 14 million Syrians, including Oudeh, have been forced to flee their homes since 2011, making it the world’s largest refugee crisis. More than half of those people are displaced within Syria, where, according to the UN, seven in 10 people need humanitarian assistance and nine in 10 live below the poverty line.

“This regime has killed many innocent people, abandoned millions of people and treated everyone badly,” Oudeh wrote in a text message.

Two Syrian families — the Alsaloums and the Al Horanis — said they are hopeful for the future of their home country.

Both families fled to the U.S. during Assad’s rule, where they had to adapt to a completely new language and culture. Now living a few doors from each other in an Augusta apartment complex, they were following the news out of Syria last week with bated breath as rebel forces took control.

“We stayed up, like all the night, just to see what was going on (in Syria),” Qusai Al Horani said.

When the Assad regime fell Dec. 8, it “was like (a) holiday” for Syrians, Al Horani said, a holiday they have awaited since the Syrian civil war ignited in 2011.

The celebration is mixed with sadness for the tens of thousands of people still missing in Syria, Al Horani said, as many Syrians try to piece together the fate of their loved ones taken and imprisoned during Assad rule.

“It’s 14 years of waiting for this moment,” Momen Alsaloum said. “After 14 years of death, and so many people (leaving) the country, that’s a very, very important moment.”

Now, the Alsaloum and the Al Horani families hope that one day, they can take their children to visit relatives in Syria.

Sultan Alsaloum, 3, takes a photograph Saturday of his father, Momen Alsaloum, right, and his siblings Amin, 10, center left; Jenna, 6, center right; and Caroline Al Horani, 4, center front, at their apartment in Augusta. Momen Alsaloum says he and his family have been monitoring world news every day and are elated that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Imad Durra, the board president at the New England Arab American Organization in Westbrook, said he has heard others with ties to Syria and the region express a similar sense of relief with news of the Assad regime’s falling.

“Overwhelmingly, it is a sense of relief,” Durra, who is originally from neighboring Lebanon and regularly goes back to visit, said. “The regime that has been toppled was extremely authoritarian and has been characterized by severe limitations on personal freedoms, imprisonments and the disappearance of not only political dissidents, but civilians who would say something that was maybe considered threatening to the regime.”

At the same time, Durra said there is apprehension about what will happen next for Syria, though many say that anything would be better after Assad.

“Is this going to evolve in a democratic way or a less democratic way?” Durra said. “Is there going to be a fundamentalist bent, or will it be more of a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious bent? But the overwhelming emotion is that of relief and happiness.”

In just the past two months, the United States has admitted 1,945 refugees from Syria, ranking behind only Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar. Maine has become home to 38 of the recent Syrian refugees, according to data from the Refugee Processing Center, an arm of the U.S. Department of State.

Momen Alsaloum’s oldest son, Amin, 10, and Qusai Al Horani’s daughter, Caroline, 4, hold a Syrian flag Saturday outside the apartment building where they live in Augusta. Momen Alsaloum says he and his family have been monitoring world news every day and are elated that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

In central Maine, many of the refugees who settle in the area end up interacting with the Capital Area New Mainers Project, or CANMP, an organization that helps immigrants and refugees find stability in a new country and culture, according to Executive Director Jon Godbout.

He said the organization aims to help refugees and immigrants on a midterm timeline — beyond the initial aid they are likely to receive for the first 90 days in America. Godbout said CANMP’s biggest initiative is a family mentor team program, which pairs three to five volunteers with a New Mainer family to help them adjust to their new area.

“These family mentor teams will do things like help with transportation,” Godbout said. “They will help connect them to local community events.

“Sometimes, they’ll help network in the community to find jobs. And so it’s really meant to be, when you get here, a friend that you already have available to assist you with navigating the community and navigating the resources available to you. That’s the whole purpose of our family mentor teams.”

CANMP owns several properties in central Maine, where the organization temporarily houses some of the families who ask for assistance. The organization rents the homes at less than market rate for a two-year period, Godbout said, to help families become better positioned to move into more stable long-term housing.

Momen Alsaloum helps his youngest son, Sultan, 3, center, hold the Syrian flag Saturday outside the apartment building where they live in Augusta. Also shown: Momen Alsaloum’s other children and Qusai Al Horani’s daughter. Momen Alsaloum says he and his family have been monitoring world news every day and are elated that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press He

Oudeh now works at CANMP as a refugee support coordinator, which he said he has taken as an opportunity to learn more about the central Maine community. In an announcement about his hiring last December, Oudeh said he wanted to help other families because he knew “how hard it is to be new.”

He said he remembers feeling anxious about his first days here, but meeting good people — and sharing Syrian food with them — helped him feel more at home.

“I hope there are some meetings to introduce the community to refugees because these refugees are loving people and thank America for helping them,” Oudeh said. “And now we feel that America is our country, and I hope we can give it back a lot of good things.”