Fear among Syria’s minorities after the fall of Assad

The killer came at night; A masked man on a motorcycle attacked without warning and then sped away. This has become a familiar pattern in some corners of the new Syria, as the country’s fragile unity has been eroded by revenge attacks and sectarian killings in recent months.

The main targets are Alawites, the sect of deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, on October 1, this time the victims were Christians; Cousins ​​Wissam and Shafiq Mansour, both 39, were as close as brothers. While they were chatting with a friend over coffee and cigarettes, they came under a hail of bullets.

The killings took place in the village of Anaz in Wadi al-Nasara, or the Christian Valley, a collection of rolling hills in the Homs countryside in western Syria. Locals say the gunman came from the direction of a nearby Sunni Muslim village.

Sitting near Wissam’s coffin, his father George railed against the authorities, saying Christians in the valley were left defenseless.

“The weapons were taken from us but left in the hands of a rival (Sunni) village,” he said. “We want to bear arms against them. They know nothing about religion, love or peace. Today it could be Wissam, tomorrow it could be anyone.”

Many people in the valley are feeling vulnerable these days. They supported Assad before the regime fell, and he supported them. Many Christian communities looked to it for protection. Wissam was part of the pro-Assad militia that defended his village. Some locals say that’s why he was targeted.

Was this a revenge attack or a sectarian murder? We can’t be sure, but nothing can bring Wissam back to his wife Leen. He leaned over his coffin for a final farewell, then leaned back with an ashen face.

Her husband and cousin were taken to the funeral; their white coffins were carried through grief-filled streets by black-clad mourners. The crowd chanted “Christian blood is precious” as they passed by the scene of the attack.

The community here is bound together by faith and fear that Syria’s new Islamist leadership, which ousted Assad in December last year, will not be able to protect them.

The sole survivor of the attack has no intention of waiting to find out. He was shot in the hand and broke his wrist while escaping. He does not want his name to be disclosed.

The 36-year-old actor returned to Syria from Lebanon with high hopes after the overthrow of the regime.

“We all returned home wanting to start new businesses. But we cannot see the promises we were made about security and the future of Syria. My closest friends are dead. I will have to leave the country again. There are too many extremist groups. I don’t know where Syria is going.”

In the city of Homs, less than an hour’s drive away, there are almost daily reports of kidnappings and car shootings. We found a pattern of deadly attacks on Alevis, silent killings and little response.

There are many war scars in the city; Some of its busy streets are covered in ruins and rubble. Some Alevis who survived the war now wonder whether they can survive in peace.

Belonging to this sect, which was a branch of Shiite Islam during the Assad period, could have been beneficial.

Now it was a curse and a death sentence for 46-year-old Shaaban Al Ezzeldin.

The shopkeeper was shot three times on September 28 as he locked up his family business for the night. The killer was again a masked man on a motorcycle.

We meet his brother Adnan in a building that has belonged to their family since 1970. A bearded man dressed in black, collapsed in pain. Unlike most, he dares to speak up.

“People are being killed because they are Alevis,” he told me, “no more, no less. My brother was loved by everyone in the region, all our neighbors, all sects. Some of our neighbors would come to the shop and have fun with him in the evenings. He did not disturb or harm anyone.”

He says that Şaban sat and chatted with the security forces at the checkpoint right outside the shop. He was shot dead after the checkpoint was removed.

I asked him why he thought the checkpoint had been taken. He says he doesn’t know and emphasizes that the family “does not blame anyone.”

Adnan stated that two more Alevis were killed on the same day as his brother, adding that there was a purpose in shedding blood. “What is happening now are the seeds of forced migration,” he says. “This is just the beginning. Even though we have lived together for hundreds of years, someone is trying to destabilize the situation and oppose coexistence.”

He hopes Syria’s mosaic of religions and sects can hold together. But then he adds: “I lost my brother, and others lost their loved ones. If we’re all going to die, we might as well run away.”

Syria’s interim government has vowed to protect all its citizens, not just its predominantly Sunni Muslim population. The country’s Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais said public trials would be held for those accused of involvement in large-scale sectarian violence earlier this year.

More than 1,400 people were killed in March following an offensive by Assad supporters, with government forces and allied groups accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings. Most of the victims were Alevi civilians.

Approximately 2,000 people (combatants and civilians) were killed in sectarian violence in July. Here too, government forces were accused of executions. Most of those killed were from the Druze minority.

It is difficult to assess the extent of the recent killings. Attacks are often isolated and often go silent. Many families are afraid to talk.

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 separate attacks in Homs between 5 June and 31 October. Among the dead were a student, a farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher killed in a grenade attack on a school bus, and another shot dead in front of his classroom.

Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) says that murders and kidnappings have increased in Homs province, and that the Alawite-majority regions are most affected. Many of the attacks are stated to be acts of revenge against former members of the regime or suspected collaborators.

Alawites make up about 10% of Syria’s population, but father and son held many positions in the army, security and intelligence agencies during the Assad era.

Whether they supported the regime or not, not all of them did, Alevis are now at risk.

In a modest house in the mixed neighborhood of Homs, a pink-walled bedroom has become a shrine. A copy of the Quran lies on the pillow. School books and letters from friends are piled on the table. This is where a mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, gets close to her beloved daughter. “His spirit is still hanging there,” he says. “His friends come every few days. No one can quite grasp the idea that he’s dead now.”

14-year-old Ghina was on the balcony of his home on August 19 when a gunman on a motorcycle passed him and opened fire. He died in his mother’s arms, surrounded by neighbors who came to celebrate his exam results.

Ghina is “the best of girls,” says her mother, “very smart, very good at school, addicted to studying, and has a lot of plans.” The teenager loved basketball and wanted to travel and study law.

Their younger brother no longer goes to school. Their mother is too scared to let them.

“Alawite families started to leave the region, they sold their houses and left. We thought things would get better (after Assad’s fall). They said liberation, people will live freely. Now we are afraid of everything. We get scared when we hear the sound of motorcycles.”

Ghina’s face peeks out from a large photo, her warm smile framed by long black hair. “He was smiling from the day he was born,” his mother says. “He loved life very much.”

His mother does not speculate on who killed him. “There are harmful people around,” he says, “sowing the seeds of discord. They probably have no connection with the authorities, the state. I really don’t know.”

But he is sure of one thing; Why his family was targeted. I’m asking, is it because you are Alevi?

“Yes,” he answers without hesitation.

The day we met Ghina’s mother, another Alevi family was burying their kidnapped and murdered loved one. When we went to their home, they welcomed us politely but were too scared to talk.

No one has been charged with Ghina’s murder. The murders in the Christian Valley are also unsolved.

Additional reporting by Lana Antaki, Wietske Burema, Göktay Koraltan and Aref Alkrez.