Beirut:
For two days, Rihab Kamel and her family hid in the bathroom in the city of Baniyas, and armed men rushed into the vicinity to chase the Syrian Alavet minority.
The coastal city is part of Syria’s Alavet heartland, which has been plagued by the most violent acts of violence since former President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December.
“We turned off the lights and hid. When we were able to escape from the vicinity of Qusour, we found a path filled with bodies,” Kamel, 35, told AFP.
She said a Christian family sheltered them and then helped them reach the border with Lebanon, adding that they planned to escape.
“What crime did the kids commit? Are they also supporters of the regime?” she said. “We are innocent as the Alawites.”
The violence broke out on Thursday as gunmen loyal to Assad attacked new security forces in Syria. The ensuing conflict led to the death of both sides.
War Monitoring Syrian human rights observers later reported that security forces and allied groups killed at least 745 Alawian civilians in Latakia and Taltas provinces.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa leads the Islamic group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which leads a lightning offensive against Assad, demanding on Sunday that “national unity (and) civil peace”.
He said at a mosque in Damascus: “God will, we will be able to live together in this country.”
But in the villages and towns along the coast, people talk about systematic killings.
The “minute” of death
Assad himself is an Alavi tribe who tries to use himself as a protector of the Syrian minority.
The new authorities have repeatedly promised to protect the inclusive transition of the rights of religious minorities.
Nevertheless, the fear of decades of cruel rule by the Assad clan still terrorizes the heart of the Alawites.
Samir Haidar, a 67-year-old Baniyas resident, told his AFP two brothers and his nephew were killed by “armed groups” entering people’s homes.
Although Haidar himself was a leftist opposition to Assads, he was imprisoned for more than a decade.
He said Friday morning he began hearing explosions and gunfire as troops deployed to the city arrived, adding that “they included foreigners.”
“They went into the building and killed my only neighbor,” he said.
He managed to escape to the Sunni community with his wife and two children, but said, “If I were five minutes late, I would be killed.”
On the same day, armed personnel entered his brother’s building 100 meters (code).
“They gathered all the people on the roof and fired at them,” Heidal said.
“My nephew survived because he hid, but my brother was killed with all the men in the building.”
He added that another brother and nephew, now 74, was killed along with all the men in the building.
“There are houses with four to five bodies inside,” Heidal said.
“We call for the burial of the dead,” he said.
“Body in the sea”
In the port city of Latakia, AFP heard testimony from residents who said armed groups had kidnapped many of the killed Alaves.
AFP reporters said that it included Yasser Sabbouh, the head of a state-owned cultural center, who was kidnapped and his body was thrown outside his home.
In Jableh, in the south, a resident cried to AFP and told AFP that they were under terrorist attacks by armed groups that controlled the town.
He said: “There are six people in the house, my parents and my brothers. There is no electricity and no water for four days. We have nothing to eat, and we dare not go out.”
“More than 50 of my family and friends were killed,” he added. “They gathered the bodies with bulldozers and buried them in the graves of the group.”
Jaafar Ali, 32, from the region, fled to neighboring Lebanon with his brother.
“I don’t think I’m going to come back anytime soon,” he said. “We are refugees without homes. We want countries to open up humanitarian immigration (channels) for the Alavians.”
(The story has not been edited by NDTV staff except the title and published from the joint feed.)
