Mohammad Marwan has been struggling to rebuild his life after being released from Syria's Saydnaya prison a year ago. Arrested in 2018 for fleeing military service, he endured beatings, electric shocks, and severe hunger. Since his release, he has received treatment for tuberculosis and attended therapy sessions to overcome the effects of his ordeal. His story reflects Syria's broader struggle to heal after the fall of the Assad regime. The country faces ongoing challenges, including sectarian violence, economic instability and tensions with Kurdish-led forces. On Monday, thousands of Syrians took to the streets to celebrate the anniversary of the regime's fall.

Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria, where government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias. Dozens of people have been killed in the fighting between local militias and clans in Syria's Sweida province. Government security forces that were sent to restore order on Monday also clashed with local armed groups. The Interior Ministry has said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured in that fighting. U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Najat Rochdi has expressed "deep concern" over the violence in the country struggling for stability after a 13-year civil war.

Long-shot efforts to find survivors from Myanmar's devastating March 28 earthquake are winding down, as rescue efforts get supplanted by increasing relief and recovery activity. The death toll has now reached 3,600 and is still climbing. People in the capital of Naypyitaw cleared debris and collected wood from their damaged houses under drizzling rain on Monday, and soldiers removed wreckage at some Buddhist monasteries. The U.N. said more than 17 million affected people need food, drinking water, health care, cash assistance and emergency shelter. Myanmar's military government and its battlefield opponents, meanwhile, have been trading accusations over alleged violations of ceasefire declarations that each had declared to ease earthquake relief efforts.

Syria's new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country's fragile peace could break down. A tense calm prevailed Thursday after checkpoints were set up throughout the country's third-largest city, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Alawites and Christians. The security forces are controlled by the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the charge that unseated former President Bashar Assad.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has raised the number of fatalities in Turkey from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake to 43,556. The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria now stands at 47,244. In northwestern Syria, the local civil defense known locally as The White Helmets, said that thousands of children and tens of thousands of families have taken shelter in cars and tents "fearing they would face a repeat of the earthquake." In government-held Syria, a first plane from Bahrain loaded with aid landed in Damascus.