Reda al-Khedr was only five when his mother escaped the siege of Homs in 2014. A decade later in Cairo, he can hardly believe the Syrian government that killed his father has fallen.
"I can barely remember Syria," Khedr, now 15, told AFP in the Egyptian capital.
"But now we're going to go home to a liberated Syria. We're done with Bashar al-Assad and his corrupt regime," he said on Sunday, still blinking in disbelief at rebel groups' lightning offensive that toppled the Assad family's five-decade rule earlier in the day.