Fear among Syrian minorities after the fall of Assad

The killer arrived at night: a masked man on a motorcycle who attacked without warning and then fled. It has become a familiar pattern in some corners of the new Syria in recent months, as the country’s fragile unity is eroded by revenge attacks and sectarian killings.

The main targets are the Alawites, the sect of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But this time, on October 1, the victims were Christians: Wissam and Shafiq Mansour, cousins, both 39 years old and as close as brothers. While they were chatting with a friend over coffee and smoking, they were hit by a hail of bullets.

The killings occurred in the village of Anaz in Wadi al-Nasara, or the Valley of the Christians, a hilly area in the rural province of Homs in western Syria. Locals say the gunman came from a nearby Sunni Muslim village.

Sitting a short distance from Wissam’s coffin, his father George lashed out at the authorities, saying the valley’s Christians had been left defenseless.

“They took our weapons, but left them in the hands of a rival (Sunni) village,” he said. “We want to carry weapons against them. They know nothing about religion, love or peace. Today it is Wissam, tomorrow it could be anyone.”

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

Was it a revenge attack or a sectarian murder? We can’t be sure, but nothing will bring Wissam back to his wife Leen. He leaned over his coffin to say a final goodbye and then slumped back, his face pale.

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

The community here is united by faith and fear that Syria’s new Islamist leadership – which overthrew Assad in December last year – will not protect them.

The only survivor of the attack has no intention of waiting to find out. He was shot in the hand and broke his ankle while escaping. He doesn’t want to be named.

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

“We all came home,” he said, “wanting to start new businesses. But what we were promised about security and a future for Syria, we don’t see. 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’s drive away in the city of Homs, there are almost daily reports of kidnappings and vehicle shootings. We found a pattern of deadly attacks against Alawites, killings that occur quietly and attract little response.

The city has many battle scars; Some of its bustling streets are littered with ruins and rubble. Having survived the war, some Alawites now wonder if they will survive peace.

During the Assad era, belonging to this sect – a branch of Shiite Islam – could bring benefits.

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

The shopkeeper was shot three times on September 28 while closing the family business for the night. Once again, the killer was a masked man on a motorcycle.

We meet his brother Adnan in a building his family has owned since 1970. He has a beard, dresses in black, and is overcome with grief. Unlike many, he dares to speak.

“They are killing people just because they are Alawites,” he told me, “no more, no less. My brother was loved by everyone in the area, by all our neighbors, by all the sects. Some of our neighbors used to come to the store and spend the afternoons with him. He never bothered or hurt anyone.”

He says Shaaban used to sit and chat with security forces at a checkpoint just outside the store. After the checkpoint was removed, he was shot dead.

I asked him why he thinks the checkpoint was taken away. He says he does not know and emphasizes that the family “is not accusing anyone.”

Adnan says two other Alawites were killed on the same day as his brother, adding that the bloodshed has a purpose. “What is happening now is the seed of forced emigration,” he says. “It’s just the beginning. Someone is trying to destabilize the situation and oppose coexistence, even though we have already lived together for hundreds of years.”

He hopes Syria’s mosaic of religions and sects can be held together. But then he adds: “I lost my brother and others also lost their loved ones. If they are going to kill us all, we better run.”

Syria’s interim government has vowed to protect all its citizens, not just the majority Sunni Muslim population. The country’s Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais says there will be public trials for those accused of engaging in large-scale sectarian violence early this year.

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

Some 2,000 people (combatants and civilians) died in July in another outbreak of sectarian violence. Also in this case, government forces were accused of executions. Most of the dead belonged to the Druze minority.

It is difficult to assess the magnitude of the recent killings. The attacks are usually isolated and often shrouded in silence. Many families are afraid to speak.

By collating information from local media reports, contacts on the ground and human rights groups, we estimate that at least 40 Alawites were killed in Homs in separate attacks between June 5 and October 31. 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 her class.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) says there is an escalation of incidents of killings and kidnappings in Homs province, with Alawite-majority areas being the most affected. Most attacks are acts of revenge, he says, against former members of the regime or those suspected of collaborating.

Alawites make up about 10% of Syria’s population, but under Assad – the father and son – they played many roles in the military, security and intelligence agencies.

Whether they support the regime or not (and not all did), Alawites are now at risk.

In a modest house in a mixed neighborhood of Homs, a pink-walled bedroom has become a sanctuary. A copy of the Quran rests on a pillow. School books and letters from friends are piled up on a desk. This is where a mother, who does not want to be identified, approaches her beloved daughter. “His soul still hangs over the place,” he says. “Her friends come over every few days. No one quite understands the idea that she’s dead now.”

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

Ghina was “the best of the daughters,” says her mother, “so intelligent, so good at school, addicted to studying, with so many plans.” The teenager loved basketball and wanted to travel and study law.

His younger brothers no longer go to school. Their mother is too scared to leave them.

“Alawite families began to leave the area, they sold their houses and left. We thought everything would get better (after Assad’s fall). They said it was liberation, that people would live freely. Now we fear everything. We get scared when we hear a motorcycle.”

Ghina’s face peeks out from a large photo, her warm smile framed by her long dark hair. “She was smiling from the day she was born,” her mother says. “She loved life so much.”

Her mother does not speculate about who killed her. “There are harmful people out there,” he says, “who sow seeds of sedition. They probably have no relationship with the authorities or the state. I really don’t know.”

But she is sure of one thing: why her family was attacked. Was it because you are an Alawite, I ask you?

“Yes,” she answers, without hesitation.

The same day we met Ghina’s mother, another Alawite family was burying a loved one who had been kidnapped and murdered. When we visited their house, they welcomed us politely but were too scared to speak.

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

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