Angry alvites attacks in Syria

Berut:

For two days, Rihab Kamal and his family panicked their bathrooms in Balis city, as armed people created a storm in the neighborhood, chasing members of Syria’s Alvite minority.

The coastal city is part of Syria’s Alavit Heartland, which has been held from fierce violence since former President Bashar al-Assad in December.

The 35-year-old mother Kamal told AFP, “We shut down the lights and hidden. When we were able to escape from our neighborhood of al-Kusour, we found roads filled with corpses.”

A Christian family gave him shelter and then helped him reach the border with Lebanon, he said, he said that he had planned to escape across the border.

“What crime did the children commit? Are they also supporters of (topd) regime?” He said. “We are innocent as alvites.”

Violence erupted on Thursday after the loyalty of gunmen, Assad attacked the new Syrian security forces. The upcoming clashes resulted in dozens of deaths on both sides.

War monitoring Syrian Observatory for Human Rights later reported that security forces and affiliated groups killed at least 745 alvite citizens in Latakia and Tartus provinces.

Interim Chairman Ahmed al-Shara, who led the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, offered Adav aggressively, which topped Assad, on Sunday, called for the preservation of “national unity (and) civil peace” on Sunday.

“God ready, we will be able to live together in this country,” he said in a mosque in Damascus.

But in villages and towns on the coast, people talked about systematic killings.

‘Minors’ from death

Asad, an alvite, he himself demanded to introduce himself as a protector of Syrian minorities.

The new authorities have repeatedly promised an inclusive infection that protects the rights of religious minorities.

Alvite Hartland is still holding fear of rebuke over the decades of the brutal regime of Assad clan.

Sameer Haider, a 67 -year -old resident of Balis, told his two brothers and his nephew was killed by “armed groups” who entered people’s homes.

However, one otheritetete himself was related to the leftist protests under Hyder Assads and was imprisoned for more than a decade.

He said that he began to listen to the explosion and bullets on Friday morning, with the arrival of forces stationed in the city, “foreigners among them”.

“He entered the building and killed my only neighbor,” he said.

He managed to escape to a Sunni neighborhood with his wife and two children, but said: “If I had been late for five minutes, I would have been killed.”

On the same day, armed people entered their brother’s building 100 meters (yards) away.

“They used to gather all the men on the roof and set them on fire,” Hyder said.

“My nephew survived because he hid, but my brother was killed with all the men of the building.”

He said that another brother, who was 74 years old, and the nephew was killed with all the men of his building.

Hyder said, “They have houses with four or five bodies.”

He said, “We have appealed to be able to bury our dead,” he said that he has been unable to bury his brothers till now.

‘Body in the sea’

In the port city of Latakia, AFP heard testimony from residents who said that armed groups kidnapped several alvites, who were killed.

An AFP reporter said that one of them was the head of the cultural center, Yasar Sabboh, run by the state, who was kidnapped and whose body was thrown out of his house.

Further to the south, a resident spoke to AFP in tears, saying that they were terrorized by armed groups who took control of the city.

He said, “There are six of us in the house with my parents and my brothers. There is no electricity for four days, no water. We have nothing to eat and we don’t dare to go out,” he said on the condition of not printing a name for fear of his safety.

He said, “More than 50 people have died of my family and friends.” “They gathered bodies with bulldozers and buried them in large -scale tombs.”

Alvite Jafar Ali, a 32 -year -old from the region, fled to the neighbor Lebanon with his brother.

“I don’t think I’m going back soon,” he said. “We are refugees without a motherland. We want countries to open (channel) for human migration.”