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Internally from the northern city of rallied for their right to��return to their homes on Wednesday, on the fifth��anniversary of their displacement.

Protesters took to the streets in����carrying signs reading "we will return without Assad [in power]", expressing their will to live free from the rule of Syrian��dictator President Bashar Al-Assad.

Aleppo was seized by the Syrian armed opposition in July 2012, before being in December��2016 after a five-month siege and battle backed by Russian air power that left the historic city in ruins and killed thousands.

"The demonstration is very important��to remind the world of the criminality practiced against us��by the Assad regime and its allies," photographer and reporter��Bilal Al-Hammoud - who was displaced from in the��Idlib province but also attended the demonstration��- told ������.

Though Al-Hammoud wasn't displaced from Aleppo, he��explained he "share[s] the same feelings with other protesters"��due to their shared goal of returning to their homes.��

فيديو | سوريون في الذكرى الخامسة لتهجير أهالي : "راجعين بلا أسد"

— العربي الجديد (@alaraby_ar)

"I wanted to participate... to tell Bashar al-Assad that I will return to Aleppo...�� we are continuing our revolution��until my daughter can grow up in Aleppo," Fateh Raslan, a man displaced from Aleppo, told ������'s Arabic-speaking sister publication Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

“On the fifth anniversary...��we decided to be present to demand the right of return without the Assad regime... we have left our city by force, but we will continue our revolution until we can return,"��Bilal Al-Abdullah, also displaced from Aleppo, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

For many��forcibly displaced Syrians, memories of the horror they experienced were embedded deep within them, fuelling their motivation to persist and fight for a free Syria.

"Aleppo is the remains of our martyrs, the remains of our children that remained under the rubble, and it is our duty to remember them always at every moment...��the blood of our martyrs is our fuel”��Media Activist Ibrahim Radwan, also from Aleppo, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The Syrian revolution began on 15 March 2011, before the Assad regime violently cracked down on peaceful protests demanding democratic reform.

�����������in the ongoing conflict, more than��five million Syrians have been forced to flee to neighbouring countries and an additional����have been internally displaced since.