Weeks after a wave of retaliatory violence is believed to have killed more than 1,000 people – including some 800 civilians – Alawites in the religious minority’s Syrian coastal heartland are still reeling from the scale and brutality of the killings, and wondering what the events mean for hopes of a peaceful new country.
The massacres took place mostly in the provinces of Latakia and Tartous, known as bastions of support for former president Bashar al-Assad, whose family is Alawite and ruled Syria for decades before his ouster last December by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Several days of violence broke out on 6 March, after al-Assad loyalists ambushed security forces affiliated with Syria’s transitional government – run by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of HTS – killing a reported 13 security personnel near the city of Jableh, in Latakia.
Clashes followed, and forces linked with the government were sent to pursue al-Assad loyalists. But rights groups and survivors say they turned on Alawite villages, burning down homes and massacring civilians in sectarian revenge killings, sometimes of entire families.
As survivors piece together what happened, members of the Alawite community who supported the new government have found themselves in a particularly difficult position.
Activist Hanadi Zahlout, who now lives in France, had three brothers who were killed in the violence in rural Jableh earlier this month. She backed the 2011 uprising against al-Assad, despite it being a rarity in her Alawite community at the time. As a vocal critic of the al-Assad regime, she welcomed his overthrow. But as she grieves the loss of her brothers, Zahlout is now trying to fathom what the sectarian killings mean for Syria, and the new government she has put her hopes in.
“I don’t feel betrayed. But I do feel disappointed,” Zahlout told The New Humanitarian by phone of her feelings towards Syria’s interim government, which has vowed to include all of Syria’s diverse communities, despite HTS’ past affiliation with al-Qaeda. “I didn’t expect a massacre to occur just three months after the new administration took control, especially after the promises they made to preserve civil peace.”
Justice and division
In the aftermath of the violence, al-Sharaa told Reuters in an interview that he would punish those responsible. He announced an independent investigation as well as a committee “to preserve civil peace and reconciliation, because blood begets more blood”.
He blamed pro-Assad groups backed by foreign powers for starting the violence, but also said revenge had become a motive.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” said the interim president, who led HTS and other rebels in a lightning offensive from northwest Idlib province through Aleppo, Hama, and Homs to take Damascus late last year. “We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us.”
“I can clearly see the faces of the killers, and no arrests have been made so far.”
Uniting all of Syria after 14 years of war and decades of a brutal dictatorship that often encouraged and weaponised regional and sectarian division was always going to be a huge challenge. As much as many Syrians want to build a new country together, they also want to see justice for decades of enforced disappearances, torture, and mass executions. Counting the toll of the war has always been challenging, but it is estimated that more than 500,000 people have been killed since al-Assad’s crackdown on protesters turned into an all-out civil war in 2011.
Before the massacres in Latakia and Tartous, there had already been scattered revenge killings of low-level members of al-Assad’s former regime. Despite renewed promises of inclusivity at a recent national dialogue conference, such acts of violence fuel fears that the reality could be very different.
For her part, Zahlout said her disappointment in the new government deepened as she saw videos, which have been widely circulated on social media by members of the Alawite community, apparently showing men in military fatigues executing unarmed civilians during this month’s violence. “I can clearly see the faces of the killers, and no arrests have been made so far,” she said. The New Humanitarian could not independently verify the authenticity of these videos.
“Most of us no longer feel safe”
Eyewitnesses in the Latakia village of Shalfatiya, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals, told The New Humanitarian they had seen targeted executions of male residents, as well as the looting of homes and businesses.
The once-thriving community has been left desolate, with people afraid to go outside.
“We initially welcomed the new authorities. We tried to build trust,” recounted Shalfatiya resident Nour*, of the months since al-Assad was toppled. “They were always so polite, which is why the violence was so shocking.”
Fear and mistrust now reign. The government sent in new security forces to swap out those who had been previously posted in the region, but residents remain reluctant to interact with them.
“Most of us no longer feel safe and prefer to stay indoors. Every shop has been looted, every pharmacy emptied,” Nour said. “Basic goods can be found in nearby villages that escaped the looting, but no one dares to pass through the checkpoint. I don’t think anyone here will ever trust the current authorities again.”
Eyewitnesses from several Alawite villages told The New Humanitarian that foreign fighters were involved in the attacks. But Nour said the perpetrators she saw were mostly Syrian.
“We recognised their accents,” said Nour, who witnessed killings in the streets and saw her own home looted. “They were our own countrymen.”
Residents of Ain al-Arous, a village in the Latakia countryside, recalled similar scenes. Rifaat* recounted how he and his family hid in the fields, listening to the relentless gunfire of execution squads. He said he personally knows 45 civilians who were killed, including his sister and her husband.
"If they found a home empty, especially with no gold or valuables, they would fly into a rage,” Rifaat told The New Humanitarian. “They would then burn the house down," he said.
Like some other Alawites, Rifaat initially welcomed the collapse of the al-Assad regime. For years, Iran-backed militias had a presence in the area, and drug trafficking (shipped through the Latakia port) and crushing poverty made life unbearable. This meant that while people in the community did not necessarily trust those rebel factions with a reputation for religious extremism, they were ready for change in Syria.
“We hoped for change when the new forces arrived,” Rifaat added. “We explained our position to them, and they promised they were here to liberate, not to take revenge. But today, that no longer seems to be the case.”
Several witnesses told The New Humanitarian that some 25 homes were completely torched in Ain al-Arous alone.
Novelist Samar Yazbek described the terror that unfolded in her home village of Besaysin, in Latakia, where armed groups stormed her family’s residence on two separate occasions. The first time, they dragged her brothers and brothers-in-law outside, beating and humiliating them in public. They then stole the family’s cars and left.
Days later, they returned, demanding money and gold. Yazbek said her family called security officials at the Ministry of Interior and gave them descriptions of the men. She said patrols eventually did arrive, several hours after the worst had already happened.
While her family was spared, she recalled the moment the violence escalated beyond looting. “They ransacked our home, and when we stepped outside, we saw uniformed fighters executing civilians in the street,” she said. “Bodies were everywhere.”
Looking towards the future
Several weeks after the killings, residents of the coast and the wider Alawite community remain uncertain about who to trust. There is also widespread scepticism about the prospect of genuine accountability for what happened, despite the new government’s pledges.
Prominent Alawite opposition figure Bassam Youssef, who spent a decade in prisons under the dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, is concerned about the long-term implications of the violence.
“For many within the Alawite community, any lingering doubts about the retaliatory and extremist nature of the groups that would take power after Assad’s fall have been erased,” he said, referencing concerns that Islamist factions amongst the rebels would gain control of Syria’s military and security institutions.
The dissident physician and writer, who is now based in Bulgaria and was barred from returning to his home country under al-Assad, questioned whether Syria’s new rulers could restore the fragile social fabric that had begun to emerge in the months following al-Assad’s fall, or if they wanted to.
“The current government’s failure to take clear steps toward transitional justice has allowed a substitute retributive process to emerge, laying the groundwork for widespread violence against Alawites along the coast.”
“Those in power today do not represent the Syrian people who rose up against the Assad regime. The revolution’s foundations – freedom, dignity, and democracy – have been betrayed,” Youssef told The New Humanitarian. “The factions now ruling were once complicit in extinguishing the Syrian people’s aspirations for a free and dignified life. For true believers in the revolution’s ideals, the struggle must continue. Replacing one autocrat with another changes nothing.”
Syrian writer and journalist Nawwar Jabbour, who is from Syria’s Christian minority, blamed the massacres on the new government’s failure to take quicker action to punish the crimes of the previous regime – despite widespread demands for justice from the public after the extent of its abuses at torture centres like Sednaya prison emerged in December.
“The current government’s failure to take clear steps toward transitional justice has allowed a substitute retributive process to emerge, laying the groundwork for widespread violence against Alawites along the coast,” Jabbour said. “The breach can only be remedied by permitting international investigative committees to work freely to identify and prosecute those directly responsible for the massacres.”
Zahlout, who initially championed the new government, said she believes the new government can only rebuild trust with the Alawite community if it treats all Syrians as “equal citizens, not through a majority-minority lens”.
“I believe in fair retribution. I will wait for the findings of the investigation,” she added. “We also expect international investigative bodies to take part. Only transparency and public disclosure can help us heal.”
*Nour and Rifaat’s real identities are being concealed for security reasons.
Edited by Muhammed Kotb. This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
