As told to Eir Nolsoe

There are no words in English or Arabic that can describe the feelings I have experienced over the past 72 hours.

Even the most optimistic Syrians never dared to think we would see the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

But after ten years of living in the UK, I don’t think I will go back. I left Syria when I was 17 and the bombs were still raining on Aleppo.

They took my dad’s leg. They destroyed most of our belongings. Our apartment block has been struck by air raids many times.

My sisters and I were separated from each other when battle lines were drawn through the middle of the city.

It took the UK Government four years after the civil war erupted in 2011 to create legal routes to help 20,00 people like my father, my mother and me.

Yet only 48 hours after the fall of Assad, British and European leaders are already pausing asylum applications and talking about sending people back.

It is too soon. We have seen what has happened in countries like Libya, Yemen and Egypt when autocrats fall and a power vacuum is created.