Fear of minorities in Syria after the fall of Assad

The killer arrives at night – a masked man on a motorcycle who strikes without warning and then leaves. This has become a familiar pattern in some corners of New Syria in recent months, as the country’s fragile unity has been eroded by revenge attacks and sectarian killings.

The main targets are the Alawites, the sect of Syria’s resident Bashar Al-Assad. But this time, on 1 October, the victims were Christians – Wissam and Shafiq Mansour, cousins ​​who are both 39, and as close as brothers. While they were chatting with a friend over coffee and cigarettes, they were hit by a hailstorm.

The killings took place in the village of Amaz in Wadi Al-Nasara, or valley of the Christians – an area in the surrounding hills of the province of Rural Homs in western Syria. Locals said the gunman came from the direction of a nearby Sunni Village.

Sitting a short distance from Wissam’s Cofin, his father George, who was told against the authorities, saying that the Christians of the valley had no defense.

“The barrels were taken from us but left in the hands of a rival (Sunni) Village,” he said. “We want to take weapons against them. They know nothing about religion or love or peace. Today it is wissam, tomorrow it can be anyone.”

Many in the valley are feeling vulnerable these days. Before the regime fell, they supported Assad, and he supported them. Many Christian communities look to him for protection. Wissam is part of a pro-Assad militia, defending his village. Some locals say that’s why he was targeted.

Was it a revenge attack, or sectarian killing? We can’t be sure, but nothing can bring Wissam back to his wife Leen. He bowed to his coffin for one last treatment, then returned, banishing the Ashen.

Her husband and her cousin were taken for burial – their white coffins carried by black mourners who mourned full of sorrow. People chanted that “Christian blood is precious” as they passed the scene of the attack.

The community here is bound by faith, and by the fear that Syria’s new leadership – which weakened Assad in December last year – may not be protected.

The survivor who survived the attack didn’t want to wait to find out. He was shot in the hand and broke his ankle making his getaway. He didn’t want to be called.

After the fall of the regime, the 36-year-old returned to Syria, from Lebanon, with high hopes.

“We all came back home,” he said, “wanting to start new businesses. But what we were promised about security, and a future for Syria, we do not see it. My dearest friends are dead. I will have to leave the country again. There are many extremist groups. I don’t know where Syria is going.”

Less than an hour away, in the city of Homs, there are almost daily reports of kidnappings and drive-by shootings. We have seen a pattern of deadly attacks on Alawites, killings that have occurred, and have attracted little response.

The city had many battles in the war; Some of its winding streets are lined with rubble and trash. Having survived the war, some aladites now wonder if they can survive in peace.

During the Assad Era, belonging to this sect – an offshoot of Shia Islam – would bring benefits.

Now it is a curse, and for Shaaban Al Ezzeldin, 46, it is a death sentence.

The showkeeper was shot three times on 28 September as he locked up the family business at night. Again, the killer is a masked man, on a motorcycle.

We meet his brother Adnan in a building their family has owned since 1970. He’s gaunt, dressed in black, and weighed down with grief. Unlike most, he dared to speak.

“People are killed because they are Alawites,” he told me, “no more, my brother is loved by everyone in the area.

He said that Shaaban used to sit and chat with the security forces at a checkpoint outside the shop. After the checkpoint was taken, he was shot.

I asked why he thought the checkpoint was taken. He said he did not know and stressed the family “is not accusing anyone”.

Adnan said two other youths were killed the day his brother was killed, adding that the blood had a purpose. “What is happening now is the seed for forced migration,” he said. “This is only the beginning. There is one who seeks to spoil the situation, and oppose the partnership, even though we have been together for hundreds of years.”

He hopes that Syria’s mosaic of religions and sects can unite. But then he added: “My brother is gone, and others have also lost their loved ones. If we are all going to die, we better run away.”

Syria’s interim government has pledged to protect all of its citizens, not just the majority Sunni Muslim population. The Ministry of Terrorism, Mazhar Al-Wais, said that there will be public trials for those accused of participating in large-scale sectarian violence earlier.

More than 1,400 people were killed in March when government forces and allied groups were accused of carrying out summary attacks, following an attack by Assad Loyists. Most of the victims were Alawite civilians.

About 2,000 people – fighters and civilians – were killed in July in another outbreak of sectarian violence. Here too government forces are accused of killings. Most of the dead were from the Druze Minority.

The scale of the recent carnage is difficult to assess. Attacks are often solitary and often shrouded in silence. Many families are afraid to talk.

Through cross-checking information from local media reports, contacts on the ground and human rights groups, we estimate that at least 40 Alawites were killed in Homs on 5 June and 31 October. The dead included a student, a farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher killed in a grenade attack on a school bus, and another shot in front of his class.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (Snhr) says that there are increasing incidents of killing and kidnapping in the province of Homs, which has affected areas. Most of the attacks were acts of revenge, it said, against former members of the regime, or suspected collaborators.

The Alawites account for about 10% of Syria’s population, but under Assad – the Father and Son – they fill many roles in the military, security and intelligence agencies.

Whether they support the regime or not – and not all of them – Alewites are now at risk.

In a modest house in a mixed neighborhood of Homs, a pink wall with a temple. A copy of the quran rests on the pillow. School books and letters from friends are stacked on a table. That’s where a mother – who doesn’t want to be named – comes close to her beloved daughter. “His soul still hangs in the place,” he said. “His friends come over every few days. Nobody quite gets the idea that he’s dead now.”

Ghina, 14, was on the balcony of her home on 19 August when a gunman on a motorcycle drove by and opened fire. He died in his mother’s arms, surrounded by neighbors who had come to celebrate his exam results.

Ghina is “the best daughter” as her mother says, “as smart, very good at school, addicted to study, in many plans.” The teenager who loves basketball, and wants to travel and study law.

His younger brothers don’t go to school anymore. Their mother was too scared to let them go.

“Alawite families started leaving the area, they sell their houses and go. We thought it would get better (after the fall of Assad). They said it was liberation; people would live freely. Now we fear everything. We are scared when we hear a motorbike.”

Ghina’s face stared out from a large photograph, her warm smile framed by long black hair. “He’s been smiling since the day he was born,” his mother said. “He loved life so much.”

His mother did not consider who killed him. “There are harmful people around,” he said, “they are sowing the seeds of rebellion. Maybe they are not connected to the authorities or the state. I really don’t know.”

But he is sure of one thing – why his family is being targeted. Is it because they are Alawites, I was asked?

“Yes”, he answered, without hesitation.

That same day we met Ghina’s mother, another Alawite family who buried a loved one who had been abducted and killed. When we visited their home, they received us politely but were too afraid to speak.

No one has been charged in Ghina’s murder. The valley’s murders of Christians are also unsolved.

Additional reporting by Lana Antaki, Wietske Burama, Goktay Kalaltan and Aref Alkrez.