Deraa, a small Syrian city close to the Jordanian border, was the birthplace of the movement to remove Bashar al-Assad.
Weeks after his arrest during an anti-government march, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib’s tortured and disfigured body was brought to his family here on May 21, 2011.
Widespread protests and a brutal crackdown by government forces were triggered by his killing and the torture of other local youngsters for drawing anti-Assad graffiti.
The Khatib family should be the ones in Deraa celebrating the overthrow of Assad’s government.
However, nobody was partying in that house when we were there today.
