While American President Donald Trump has called Friday’s airstrikes against the Syrian military a success, members of that country’s diaspora are calling the lack of follow-up a disappointment.

Yaman Al-Quadri, a Syrian refugee who fled to Canada after being detained by government of Syrian president Bashar Assad for a month shortly after the start of the uprising in March, 2011, called the experience of watching her people suffer through chemical attacks at the hands of the military “an emotional rollercoaster.”

“The chemical attack itself is psychologically hard on us as Syrians,” she said. “Over the past seven years, we’ve witnessed all kinds of deaths. Sarin gas is one of the banned war weapons according to international treaties but the Assad regime has been killing people over the past seven years using all kinds of weapons.”

According to a White House assessment, the Syrian government used chemical weapons in Duma, Al-Quadri’s hometown, on April 7, killing dozens of men, women and children and leaving hundreds of others injured.

Omar Jandali Riafi said the Montreal Syrian community had been anticipating an American response since the attack. But in the end, he said the only good thing was that there were no civilian casualties.

“We’ve been waiting for what’s going to happen since Trump announced he would react to the chemical attack in Duma,” he said. “We’re like ‘Okay, is it going to be as little as expected?’ We knew it was going to be a limited strike just to show the media and world they had done something without really damaging the regime.”

In April, 2017, Trump authorized a missile strike on a Syrian air force base in response to another chemical attack. Al-Quadri, who is currently in England working on a Master’s degree, said she had hoped that this time, the United States would respond with more force to put more pressure on Assad.

“It was a one-time shot, they hit the airport and then Assad kept on killing his people,” she said. “Again, now, it’s the anniversary of the last chemical attack… and we thought, probably, hopefully this time will be different, it will be a serious one compared to last year. This time he’s organizing with the French and British and they’ll try and put leverage on the Syrians and Russians and Iranians to bring them to the negotiating table.”

Al-Quadri said she was disappointed to see that the bombing would not be part of a more sustained campaign, pointing to comments by Defence Secretary James Mattis calling the strike a “one-shot” deal and noting Trump had tweeted “Mission Accomplished” on Saturday morning.

“It was a good action but we need it to be serious enough to end the suffering in Syria. There’s no point in keeping a dictator killing his own people for seven years, forcibly displacing them, demographically changing the country, creating the worst refugee crisis since World War II.”

There are those in the Montreal Syrian community who supported the strike. Muzna Dureid, who came to Montreal as a refugee a year and a half ago, said that while the strikes are not a solution to the crisis, the targets that were picked were appropriate and necessary.

“The target of those attacks is just military airports, which participate in the bombing and killing of Syrian people with chemical weapons and centers that create chemical weapons. It’s not a solution for Syrian people but it’s for the international community because Syria signed the convention against chemical weapons.”

However, Jandali Riafi said he believes the strike may have actually backfired, giving Assad propaganda material.

“It shows, look we have all the western countries gathering against us but we are still able to be victorious,” he said. “Now, in Damascus, the regime is actually celebrating their victory. Assad is as powerful as before, if not more powerful. It was just a media stunt.”

After seven years of continual war and human rights catastrophes, Al-Quadri said she’s given up on hoping for a better future for the country she once called home.

“I participated in the revolution in 2011 hoping for a better future for this country,” she said. “I was medical student in my second year, I wanted to do psychiatry after. I wanted for this country to have a democratic system, less corruption, for the next generation to live in dignity and not be fearful. We wanted a better future. Seven years later, I’m not even thinking of that. All that we want is for the killing to stop.”