As Alawites mark one year since the massacres in Syria’s coastal regions, residents of Baniyas say fear persists, wounds remain unhealed and political demands unmet.
The first trial of hundreds of suspects accused of involvement in killings in Alawite-majority areas of the Syrian coast marks the start of a closely watched and unprecedented accountability process.
Violent evictions from the informal Alawite neighborhood of al-Somoriyeh are part of a deeper story: longstanding property disputes with the neighboring town of Moadamiyat al-Sham, whose residents were expropriated under Hafez al-Assad.
While Brussels followed Washington in lifting sanctions on Syria in May, the European Union and its member states have the opportunity to chart their own course, analysts argue.
With dwindling aid and delays in registering informally with the UNHCR, tens of thousands of newly arrived Syrian refugees in Lebanon are largely on their own.
As transitional justice remains out of reach, hundreds of extrajudicial killings—predominantly of Alawites—have taken place in central Syria since the start of the year, with state security forces accused of involvement in some cases.
Thousands of Alawites have fled to Lebanon following sectarian killings on the Syrian coast. Local residents are springing into action, while some fear a spillover of violence.
A tense calm hangs over Jableh, while sectarian tensions remain following extrajudicial killings and property destruction during confrontations between pro-Assad fighters and government forces in the diverse coastal city.
After two days of bloodshed that killed hundreds, Syria’s Ministry of Defense halted military operations on the coast against forces loyal to the deposed Assad regime on Saturday pending the removal of “unaffiliated forces” from the area.
Since the Assad regime fell, repeated local and international calls for the new government in Damascus to provide guarantees for Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities have sparked controversy and fueled hate speech.
