For years, stories from Syria’s Alawites, most of them ordinary citizens and families caught on both sides of the Syrian Civil War, have gone unreported and news outlets have failed to expose how many Alawite families opposed the Assad dynasty. Amid massacres that threaten to wipe Alawites off Syria’s map, the community are speaking out against the narrative that labels them as Assad sympathisers.
After ruling Syria for more than 50 years, the Assad regime fell with astonishing speed. In December last year, rebels captured Aleppo, along with a string of other cities in a matter of days, before advancing on Damascus and bringing the Syrian Civil War to an end.
Bashar al-Assad, known to many as “The Butcher”, was notorious for leading a regime guilty of numerous forms of violations suffered by the Syrian people. According to the Syrian Network of Human Rights, during Assad’s 14-year reign, the regime carried out mass killings, rapes, kidnappings, torture, forced displacement and used four types of destructive weapons. At least 202,000 civilians were killed at the hands of Bashar Assad’s regime forces, including 23,058 children and 12,010 women.
Who are the Alawite community?
Bashar and Hafez al-Assad were both Alawites and former presidents of Syria. While Sunni and Shi’a sects believe that Allah is the only God and that Mohammad is his prophet, the Alawite minority believe in the divine trinity of Ali, Mohammad, and Salman al-Farisi. The Alawite community have long been known as advocates for the Assad dynasty.
According to current estimates, the Alawite community make up just 10%of Syria’s 22 million population. The Assad regime is notorious for favouring Alawites, gifting them with military roles and government security positions to encourage unfaltering support. This gave the community implicit influence and power across the country.
He said after prayers Assad kissed his cheek and he will never wash his cheek again.
While the Alawite’s self-imposed alienation and support for the regime assured their security, their association with Assad made them targets of human rights abuses by opposition groups. While it is assumed that all Alawites were loyal to Assad, the community was often neglected by the regime – at the hands of both the Syrian Army and the government.
While speaking to George Waters, the author of Syria Revisited and researcher for Syrian Archive, a young college-educated woman from Homs city spoke out against the assumption that claims all Alawites are loyal to Assad. The young woman and member of the Alawite community said that, like many others, she had stood against the regime after witnessing its crimes at the very start of the revolution.
“I had a big fight two years ago with a Sunni man who met Assad once in Homs. He said after prayers Assad kissed his cheek and he will never wash his cheek again. I told him he is disgusting; I curse the ground on which Assad walks,” she said. “He was Sunni and I am Alawite so how can you say all Alawites support Assad?”
What is happening to Syria’s Alawite population?
Since the regime collapsed, Alawites have been targeted by massacres and armed evictions organised by the new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. The majority of attacks have been reported in Latakia, a former refuge for the Assad regime and home to a huge number of the Alawite community, and neighbouring Tartus.
In March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, estimated that more than 1,700 people have been killed – most of them ordinary civilians who had no relation to the Assad regime or security forces. While official figures have not yet been released by the new government, other human rights groups have reported similar numbers. Human rights monitors have since described the current situation as “security chaos and a complete absence of accountability.”
“I don’t know why people expected massacres,” the young Syrian woman added. “Those free army are Syrians, they are our friends and colleagues, we were born together and lived together so why did people fear them? I think it is what the regime did over 60 years trying to separate us.”
According to a security official cited by official Syrian news agency SANA, the operation “targeted remnants of Assad’s militias and those who supported them”. As a result, a curfew was recently implemented in the coastal region of Latakia and Alawite civilians have been told to “stay in their homes,” the security official added.
Almost 80 teachers, students, relatives, and alumni have been killed in attacks over the past month. The victims were named in a Facebook post published by a high school located in the city of Baniyas in the Tartus province.
A viral video shared on social media also showed a mother standing by the bodies of two young men. In the video, the person filming scolded her and told her that her sons deserved to die because they were of the Alawite minority.
Over the past month, according to the United Nation’s refugee agency, around 30,000 Alawite Syrians have fled to Lebanon. In northern Lebanon, the Alawite community have scattered in some 30 towns and villages. Despite receiving little assistance from Lebanon and denying any support for the Assad regime, families are too fearful to return to a free Syria.
Syrian Network for Human Rights, Minority Groups, Syria Revisited, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SANA, UNHCR
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