Ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is not the first autocratic leader to have been forced to flee his country.Here are some emblematic cases over the past decades.
- Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina -
On August 5, 2024, Bangladesh's autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina was overthrown in a student-led revolution.
Hasina's iron-fisted rule was strongly backed by India, where she took refuge after her ouster.
- Tunisia: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali -
After weeks of protests sparked in December 2010 by a young Tunisian fruit seller setting himself on fire to protest police harassment and dying days later, Ben Ali fled on January 14, 2011 for Saudi Arabia, ending 23 years in power.
Ben Ali died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2019.
- Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo): Mobutu Sese Seko -
On May 16, 1997, Mobutu Sese Seko went into exile after receiving an ultimatum to step down from rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila, whose forces were advancing on the capital.
Mobutu, who had ruled the country for more than three decades since a 1965 coup d'etat, had smothered all opposition and wrecked the economy.
He died shortly afterwards on September 7, 1997 in Morocco, of prostate cancer.
- Haiti: Jean-Claude Duvalier -
Jean-Claude Duvalier, who succeeded his father "Papa Doc" Duvalier in 1971, proclaimed himself president for life, installing a regime of terror. He went into exile in February 1986 following a popular uprising over the human rights abuses committed by his regime.
He lived in France for 25 years, returning to Haiti in 2011 where he died three years later.
- Philippines: Ferdinand Marcos -
Ferdinand Marcos, who imposed martial rule from 1972 to 1981, in 1986 fled to US exile amid a bloodless, military-backed popular uprising that ended his 20 years in power.
He died in exile in 1989.
- Uganda: Idi Amin Dada -
Amin seized power in Uganda in 1971 and brutally suppressed all opposition during his eight-year reign of terror which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people, chronicled to powerful effect in the 2006 film "The Last King of Scotland".
Overthrown in a 1979 coup he died in exile in Saudi Arabia, in 2003.
- Iran: The Shah -
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who acceded to the throne in 1941, was accused of authoritarianism and criticised for his modernist reforms. He fled in 1979 after months of protests, living in exile in Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the United States and Panama, dying in Egypt in 1980.
