Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria
By Maggie Michael
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -“Don’t wait for him,” he called Whatsapp, the Syrian town of Safita disappeared from the streets of Safita’nın hours after the Abeer Süliman family on May 21 told the family. “He doesn’t come back.”
Another man who describes Suleyman’s capacity and himself as a tool, said that in subsequent calls and messages, the relatives of the 29 -year -old woman would kill slavery or escape to slavery unless they paid a ransom of $ 15,000.
“I am not in Syria,” Suleyman told his family in a call from the same phone number used by the captive of the Iraqi country on 29 May. “All the accents around me are strange.”
Reuters examined approximately a dozen calls and messages, a Syrian phone number sent by the family, the family, the family.
Suleyman, according to Syria’s families, Bashar al -Assad’s fall after the fall or missed in the disappearance of Syria’s Alevi sect of at least 33 women and girls.
The overthrow of the president, who was greatly feared in December after the 14 -year civil war, gave an angry reaction to the Muslim minority community to which he belonged and killed hundreds of people by opening Alevity civilians in the heart of the armed groups of the existing government.
Since March, social media has seen a stable message and video clip flow published by the families of missing Alawite women who are attractive for information about them, according to a Reuters examination that cannot find the online accounts of women from other sects.
The UN Syrian Investigation Commission told Reuters that he claimed that Alevi women will disappear after an increase in reports this year and the abduction of Alawite women. A spokesman said that the commission, which was established to investigate the rights violations of rights after the civil war began in 2011, will report to the UN Human Rights Council after the investigations were concluded.
Suleyman’s family, on May 27 and 28 in the Turkish city Izmir, ranging from 300 to 700 dollars in 30 transfers, Reuters told, borrowed from friends and neighbors to scrape a ransom of 15,000 dollars.
The relative, after all the money was delivered, stopped all contacts and the vehicle stopped, his phones were closed. Suleyman’s family still has no idea what’s happening.
Detailed interviews with 16 families of missing women and girls found that seven were believed to have been kidnapped and their relatives’ ransom demands ranged from $ 1,500 to 100,000 dollars. Three of the kidnapped, including Süleyman, sent text or voice messages to their families, saying that they were taken out of the country.
There was no word about the fate of the other ninth. His families said that 16 lost flames were under the eighth 18.
Reuters reviewed the receipts of approximately 20 text messages, calls and videos and alleged prisoners, as well as some ransom transfers, but could not confirm all parts of families or who was aiming for women or motives.
All 33 women disappeared in the governors of Tartous, Latakia and Hama, the Great Alawit populations. Almost half of them have returned home since then, but all women and their families refused to comment on the conditions of most of them, most of them.
Most of the families interviewed by Reuters, when they reported that their loved ones have been missed or kidnapped, said the police did not take their cases seriously and that the authorities could not investigate thoroughly.
The Syrian government did not respond to the request for comments for this article.
Ahmed Mohammed Khair, a media officer for the Governor of Tartous, rejected any suggestions that the Alevis were targeted, and most of the missing women’s cases were dependent on family disagreements or personal reasons instead of providing evidence to support it.
“Women are either forced to marry someone they will not want to marry, so they escape or sometimes they want to draw attention.”
A media officer for the governorship of Latakia repeated Khair’s comments and said that in many cases, women confiscated their beloved and families, producing kidnapping stories to avoid social stigmatization.
Hama Governor’s Media Officer refrained from commenting.
A member of the new Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to investigate the collective massacres of Alawites in the coastal regions in March, a member of the Committee to find a phenomenon, refrained from commenting on missing women’s cases.
Al-Sharaa condemned sectarian blood loss as a threat to the mission of merging the destroyed nation, and promised to punish those responsible, including those who are connected to the government.
Caught on the way to school
Syrian rights defender, following the disappearance of women this year, Yamen Hussein, most of the March violence took place after the violence, he said. As far as he knows, only Alevis were targeted and the identities and causes of the perpetrators are unknown.
Shiite, which depends on a decline of Islam, and is mainly about one tenth of the Sunni population of Syria, described a widespread sense of fear among Alevis.
Some women and girls in Hüseyin, Tartous, Latakia and Hama stay away from school or college because they are afraid of being targeted.
“Certainly, here we have a real problem where Alawite women are aimed by kidnapping.” He continued: “A humiliation tactic used by the Assad regime in the past to target women of the defeated party.”
Thousands of Allawit were forced from their homes in Damascus, many of them were rejected from their jobs, and harassed the control points of the government of Sunni fighters.
Negotiations with the families of missing women showed that most of them have disappeared in broad daylight while doing work or traveling on public transport.
Zeinab Ghadir is one of the youngest.
According to a family member who said that the suspicious abduction was contacted with a text message to warn the online girl not to publish online, the 17-year-old child was kidnapped on February 27 in the town of Latakia al-Hanadi.
Orum I don’t want to see a single picture, or I swear to God, I will send you your blood, the man said in a short message sent on the day of her phone.
The young girl made a short phone call, saying that she did not know where she was taken and that there was stomach pain before she was cut off the line. He has no idea what the family is.
Khozama Nayef closed on March 18 by a group of five people who gave medicine to kill him for several hours in the rural Hama’s rural, referring to a close relative Reuters, when he returned to five mothers.
35 -year -old was under captivity for 15 days, according to the family member who said that he had a mental failure when he returned home, he met with the family who paid $ 1,500 to finally released.
According to a family member who witnessed the kidnapping in Hama Town Salhab, 29 -year -old Doaa Abbas, days after Nayef was taken, were seized by a group of attackers who dragged him into a car waiting outside and accelerated.
How many men took Abbas or whether they were armed relatives, trying to follow the motorcycle, but said the car lost the opinion.
This year, which was not included in 33 cases defined by Reuters, he reported that his families were missing on social media, he has been revived since then and rejected that they had been kidnapped.
One of them, a 16 -year -old girl from Latakia released a video online, and released a video that says he had escaped from his will to marry a Sunni man. His family contradicted his story, said Reuters had been kidnapped and that he had been forced to marry the man and that he had to say that he had gone by willingly to protect the kidnappers to protect the kidnappers.
Reuters could not verify both accounts. A Syrian government spokesman and Latakian officials did not answer queries on this issue.
The other two re -emerging Alevi, a 23 -year -old woman and a 12 -year -old girl, said that they traveled to Arabic TV channels, Aleppo and Damascus cities, respectively, but the first one was beaten by a man in an apartment before escaping.
Dark memories of the Islamic state
The Alevis of Syria have dominated the political and military elite of the country for decades under the Assad dynasty. Bashar al -Assad’s sudden output in December saw the rise of a new government ruled by HTS, a Sunni group of once a member of the Sunni group. The new government is trying to integrate into the security forces to fill a gap after Assad’s defense device collapse, including some foreign fighters, including some foreign fighters.
Many of the families of missing women, many other people, said that the Alevis dreamed of a nightmare scenario that the Islamic state had been subjected to fates similar to those given to the Yezidi religious minorities about ten years ago.
According to the UN, a jihadist Sunni group forced thousands of Yazidi women to sexual slavery during a reign of terrorism, which sees that their commanders claimed a caliphate covering the majority of Iraq and Syria.
A series of terrible scenarios to torture the minds of the Nagham Shadi family, a flame woman who lost this month.
The 23 -year -old left his homes in the village of Al Bayadiyah in Hama on June 2, and he never returned to buy milk, Shadi Aisha said, explaining a painful waiting for any word about his daughter’s fate.
Aisha said that her family had been forced from their previous homes in a nearby village during the anti -Alawite violence on March 7.
“What are we doing? We leave this to God.”
(Reporting by Maggie Michael; Editing by Pruvin Char)
