Bashar al-Assad, the recently ousted president of Syria, has fled to Russia with his family following the rebel takeover of the country, where he and his family were granted asylum.

As the New York Post reports, Assad’s departure marks the end of the nearly 50-year reign of the Assad dynasty, following a period of political and military turmoil within the country. Assad and his family fled the country on a private plane on Sunday, as rebels surrounded and closed in on the capital city of Damascus.

Russia, a longtime ally of the Middle Eastern nation, granted asylum to the 59-year-old ex-president and his family. Russian officials have called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the rapid collapse of Syria, and which steps must be taken next.

The rebel forces consist of numerous vastly different factions, including a faction led by a former member of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, as well as remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Others include Turkey-backed fighters clashing with American-allied Kurds in the northern portions of Syria. All of these wildly disparate groups will be battling for power in the vacuum that has been left by Assad’s departure.

Despite the known brutality of the Assad regime against his opponents since the civil war first broke out 14 years ago, Assad’s reign had ultimately kept the country, and the immediate region, in a state of relative stability. With his ouster, Syria’s citizens and neighbors anticipate a drawn-out battle that may result in a completely different country by the time the dust settles.

The former Al-Qaeda member, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, issued a statement on Sunday declaring that Assad’s ouster was “a victory to the Islamic nation.”

Although several rebel leaders insisted that the new, post-Assad country will be friendly to citizens of all religions, including Christians, many in Syria’s Christian community worry that the new regime may suppress their rights more harshly than Assad ever did.