Ethnic cleansing in our neighbour just north of us
Just north of us there is ethnic cleansing going on at this very moment. I have been put in touch with a few Alawite individuals who I am interviewing to bring their stories to my readers. I sent the first of the articles to a man for him to check that nothing that I wrote would endanger him or his family. That was yesterday morning. He has not yet got back to me, has not yet even picked up the article as far as I can tell. I can only hope that nothing has happened to his family.
Another of my contacts just told me something and that is why I am worried:
Systematic expulsion of Alawites from north Hama countryside, as well as Latakia and Homs by new Syrian government. Twelve Alawite villages have been emptied of their inhabitants. HTS offered their land to investors whereby the investors get 40% of the profits and the state gets 60%. Alawites tried to go back to their land but the local authorities could not guarantee their safety.
My family is fine though terrified to leave their homes.
My mother lives in the Druze areas near Damascus so she feels safe but my father’s side are stuck on the coast and my uncle’s wife was kidnapped and put up for sale on Facebook as a sex slave but luckily my uncle saw the post and made the payment to get her back instead.
Some fled to Lebanon, others are refugees on the coast waiting until it’s the coast’s turn to get ethnically cleansed.
Let me show you what regions we are talking about. Here is the map of Syria with a double ellipse around the Governates of Latakia and Tartus, the two Alawite provinces.
Screenshot of Google Map of Syria.
And here is a zooming in on the Alawite regions of Latakia and Tartus Governates with circles around the main cities you will hear about in the news: Latakia, Tartus, and Baniyas. Hama and Homs, both outside these governates had large Alawite populations living there before the fall of the Assad regime. These have by now been mostly emptied of their Alawite communities.
This article serves merely as a brief introction to what is happening in our northern neighbour, Syria. I will be bringing more articles with time, as I speak with my Alawite contacts.
I was introduced to members of the Syrian Alawite sect by a university professor I know. Like my Alawite interviewees, he will remain anonymous to protect his contacts. If not for the relationship he had already developed with them, they would not have given me their trust so quickly and, ironically, I would not immediately have been convinced of their sincerity. I am a cynical Israeli and, after having seen how our enemies manipulate naïve Jews who want to believe that not all of our enemy neighbours want us dead, and how photos from Assad’s war have been shared for years on social media as if they were Gazans killed by Israel, I do not quickly believe and trust.
I will bring you stories of their lives and what I have learned about their religion, the characteristics of their society, their position within Syria in light of the fact that their last two presidents were Alawites.
