Over a thousand persons, most of them civilians (including three Christians), have been killed in the past few days in the coastal area of Syria. According to a UK-based monitor 830 civilians were killed in "massacres" targeting Alawites on the west coast on Friday and Saturday.
Christians are scared in the midst of all this violence. March 9th many churches didn't have their Sunday masses or church services. In cities like Latakia and Tartous also many shops and almost all the restaurants are closed. One Christian from the area says that she is afraid that a period of revenge and terror might start.
All the violence reminds the many traumatized Syrians to the horrifying times during the atrocities of ISIS. “All Christians I know, now want to leave the country,” one of our sources in the Mediterranean area of Syria says.
Fighting broke out on Thursday 6 March in Alawite-majority areas in the western coastal area of Syria. The former president al-Assad belonged to the Alawite-minority in Syria. Alawites are a branch of Shia Islam. In the Mediterranean region of Syria live most of the Alawites, it was a stronghold of the Assad-regime.
On Thursday supporters of the old regime took up arms and attacked the security forces of the new regime, killing several of them. The new leader of the country Syria's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa sent re-enforcements to the area to end the violence.
Curfew was imposed in Homs and in Tartous and Latakia. In the past days, reports circulated that the Syrian security forces allegedly killed 830 Alawite civilians. Besides that, the BBC says, quoting the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that “231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters.”
Statement of Patriarchs
The three patriarchs of the biggest churches in Syria came on Saturday with a joint statement on the violence. “In recent days, Syria has witnessed a dangerous escalation of violence, brutality, and killings, resulting in attacks on innocent civilians, including women and children. Homes have been violated, their sanctity disregarded, and properties looted—scenes that starkly reflect the immense suffering endured by the Syrian people,” they wrote.
“The Christian Churches while strongly condemning any act that threatens civil peace, denounce and condemn the massacres targeting innocent civilians, and call for an immediate end to these horrific acts, which stand in stark opposition to all human and moral values.”
The church leaders asked for “creation of conditions conducive to achieving national reconciliation among the Syrian people.” They ask for a “state that respects all its citizens” based on “equal citizenship and genuine partnership, free from the logic of vengeance and exclusion.”
They also stress that they stand for “the unity of Syrian territory and reject any attempts to divide it.” The statement is signed by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church and Patriarch Youssef Absi of the Melkite Greek Catholic church.
‘Extremely disturbing’
Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Sunday in a press release “the killing of civilians in coastal areas in northwest Syria must cease, immediately.”
He calls for “prompt, transparent and impartial investigations into all the killings and other violations, and those responsible must be held to account, in line with international law norms and standards. Groups terrorising civilians must also be held accountable.”
In March 2011 the Syrian war started when Syrians went to the streets to protest against the al-Assad regime. Soon the Syrian government responded with violence to the peaceful protests, this escalated in a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced about half of the Syrian population. Till the end of November 2024 opposition forces only controlled a small part of the Syrian territory around the city of Idlib. At the end of November they started a surprise and successful offensive towards the city of Aleppo. On 8 December they toppled the al-Assad regime when Bashar al-Assad fled the country to Russia.
Open Doors calls for prayer for the situation in Syria, pray for the people and our brothers and sisters in Syria.
please pray
- Please pray that the recent violence won’t be the starting point of another civil war in the country that has suffered so much in the past fourteen years.
- Pray that justice will be done and pray that the killing of innocent people will stop.
- Pray also for the protection of our brothers and sisters in Syria. Also in the cities Tartous and Latakia and the villages around, there are Christian communities.
- Pray that this won’t lead to another exodus of Christians from Syria.
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