Three months after the Assad Regime falls in Syria, Islamist fighters committed a massacre of hundreds of Alawites. The temporary president commented succinctly – observers see an ethnic cleaning.
They are dramatic calls for help from Alawiters and Alawites from the coastal areas in northwestern Syria. “People, the thing is very serious. We are experiencing a real extension. Please, please, the whole world has to act. We are wiped out here,” says a woman from the village of Dschabla in a voice message to the ARD – And she adds an urgent request: “I don't want my name to appear in any report, because we are still in danger and are threatened.”
Another woman also speaks of immeasurable fear in a voice message. She also prefers to remain anonymous: “We cannot eat, we are caught in our houses – are afraid to go out. Anyone who dares in front of the door will either be killed or kidnapped. We simply cannot know who awaits us there.”
Reports: More than 1,300 deaths
Three months after the Assad regime's fall, Islamist fighters have committedly committed massacres in hundreds of civilians. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,300 people have been killed in the coastal region since Thursday, including at least 830 members of the Alawite minority.
It is the most violent outbreak of violence that Syria has experienced since Assad's fall. The government is primarily responsible for armed Assad supporters, but has also granted attacks against Alawi-Civilians by Islamist fighters.
“Challenges, with which we calculated “
Transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa was rather succinctly expressed after a visit to the mosque: “What happens in the country are challenges that we have expected. We have to preserve the national unity and social peace.”
Later the President appointed a committee that – according to the decree – should examine “the events on the Syrian coast”. And both of the civilians and attacks on security forces by supporters of ex-president Assad. There is no question of massacres.
Public call to jihad
On the other hand, Ramy Abdulrahman becomes clear – he speaks of hundreds of civilians killed. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ARD: “The massacres preceded a public call to the jihad as if it were a war battle. There are video recordings in which it is said: 'We have come to kill the Alawites.' You didn't say: 'We came to kill the Assad supporters.' This shows that it is an ethnic cleaning.
Abdulrahman works from Great Britain – he has been documenting the fight in Syria for years and has a dense network of informants in the country. He adds: “When it comes to relatives of the-assadic regime, the crimes have committed, then we would support their persecution and stand up for their criminal persecution. But the entire Alawite community cannot be punished just because Bashar al-Assad Alawit was.”
There were also regime gegers under Alawites
Many Alawites annoy the fact that they are regularly presented as supporters of the Assad regime. The right thing is that the Alawites were overrepresented as military service providers in the Syrian army. But that was also a trap for the members of the faith community, and there were also numerous regime regulators among Alawites.
One who fled to Germany from Assad, says: “The Alawites were really happy that Assad is gone that Assad is no longer in power that Assad no longer sends our children to war.”
Hidden between olive and orange trees
Islamists in Syria, on the other hand, have described the Alawites as the renegade and the current government in Damascus has pushed the faith community to the brink – all of this contributed to the current excesses of violence. His family, the man says, had to hide between olive and orange trees in the last few days: “There was four hours, I had no contact with my family there. I didn't know whether my family lived or not. It was really the worst time of my life.”
Fear is by no means gone – Alawites call the international community to work for escape corridors from the Syrian coastal areas. They are currently caught there – the Syrian government has blocked the streets in the region.
