By Maya Geberry, Timor Ajari and Ferras Dalati
Damascus (Reuters) -Close until midnight on March 6, when a wave of sectarian killings began in Western Syria, masked men to storm the homes of Alavit’s families in the capital Damascus and detain more than two dozen unarmed men, witnesses said.
The ones taken from the Al Kadam neighborhood included a retired teacher, an engineering student and a mechanic, all of them Alawite-Malcina’s sect of the overthrown leader Bashar al-Assad.
Alavite group, loyal to Assad, fired newly built rebels in the coastal areas, about 200 miles (320 km) to the northwest. This unleashed there about the murder of revenge, which left hundreds of alavite dead.
Syria’s temporary president Ahmed al -Sharaa told Reuters that he was sending his forces the next day to stop violence on the coast, but that some fighters who flooded the region to crush the uprising did it without the permission of the Ministry of Defense.
Against the backdrop of fears of a broader sectarian conflict in Syria, the Sharaa government lasted to emphasize after the violence that the killings were geographically limited. He pointed out a committee to establish facts to investigate the “shore events”.
According to accounts of 13 witnesses in Damascus, however, sectarian violence spread to the southern edges of the capital of Syria, a few kilometers from the Presidential Palace. The details of the alleged raids, abductions and killings have not been reported earlier.
“Every Alavit’s home, they knocked the door and took the men from the inside,” said a resident whose relative, 48-year-old telecommunications engineer Ihsan Zeidan, was taken by masked men in the early hours of March 7th.
“They took him clean because he is Alavit.”
All witnesses who spoke to Reuters asked for anonymity of fear of repression.
The neighborhood of Al Kadam is well known to be the home of many Alavit families. In general, the witnesses said, at least 25 men were taken. More than 12 of them were confirmed later dead, according to relatives and neighbors, who said they either saw pictures of the bodies or found them dead nearby.
The other men were not heard.
Four witnesses said some of the armed men who came to Al Kadam identified themselves as members of the General Security Service (GSS), a new Syrian agency involving former rebels.
A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, where GSS operates, told Reuters that the power “was not directly directed to Alavites. Security forces confiscate weapons from all sects.”
The spokesman did not answer further questions, including why it is claimed that unarmed men were taken in these operations.
Yasser Farhan, a spokesman for the committee investigating sectarian violence, said his work was geographically limited to the shore, so he did not investigate the cases in Al Kadam. “But there may be discussions on the committee later to expand our work,” he told Reuters.
Alavites make up about 10% of the population of Syria, concentrated in the coastal cores of Latakia and Tartus. Thousands of Alavit’s families have also lived in Damascus for decades, and in provincial cities such as Homs and Hama.
Impunity
Human Rights Watch researcher HIBA Dayadin has called for a thorough investigation of alleged raids in response to Reuters reporting.
“Families deserve answers, and the authorities must ensure that the responsible are held accountable, regardless of their belonging,” she said. “While this happens, the cycle of violence and impunity will continue.”
Four of the men confirmed in Damascus were from the same extended family, according to a relative who escaped from the attack, hiding upstairs with the young children of the family.
They were Mohsen Mahmoud Badran, 77, Fadi Mohsen Badran, 41, Aiham Hussein Badran, 40-year-old, born with two fingers from his right hand, a congenital defect that disqualled him from the Army Service, and their son-in-law Fras Mohammed Maaruf, 45.
Relatives visited the hospital in Mudzhtahide in Central Damascus in search of their bodies, but their employees refused access to the morgue and directed them to the GSS branch in Al Kadam, the witness said.
An employee there showed them photos of the phone from all four men dead. There is no cause of death and none of the images can be established, the relative said.
The employee told the family to collect the bodies of the Mudahyd hospital, but the employees there denied that they had them.
“We were unable to find them and we were too scared to ask anyone,” a relative told Reuters.
Mohammed Halbuni, director of the hospital in Muddahyd, told Reuters that all al -Kadam bodies were taken directly to the Division of Forensic Medicine in the neighborhood. The employees there said they had no information on sharing.
The Interior Ministry spokesman did not answer questions about whether the forces of Al Kadam Station were related to death.
Sharaa announced the termination of all rebel groups and their planned integration at the restructured Ministry of Defense in Syria. But the full command and control of the various, sometimes rival factions, remain elusive.
Four other men seized the same night were found in an orchard near Al Kadam, with firearms alleting that they were killed a “execution style”, according to a second resident, who told Reuters that the family was quickly buried the bodies.
Reuters failed to confirm the details of her account.
Another set of four men were confirmed dead by their relatives, who received pictures of the bodies of the WhatsApp Message Platform on Thursday, nearly three weeks after they were made.
The photos reviewed by Reuters depict four men on the ground with blood and bruising on their faces. One of them was identified by a relative like Samer Asaad, a 45-year-old with a mental handicap, which was taken on the night of March 6th.
Most of the seizures remain missing.
They include University student Ali Rustom, 25, and his father Tamim Rustom, a 65-year-old mathematics teacher, two relatives told Reuters. “We have no evidence, no bodies, no information,” one said.
“All I want is to leave”
A relative of Rabih Akel, a mechanic, said his family had questioned the local police station and other security agencies, but were told they had no information about Akel’s location.
She draws parallels with forced disappearance under Assad when thousands disappeared into a labyrinthous closed system. In many cases, families will learn their relatives years later have died in custody.
She and the other witnesses said they did not turn to the facts establishment committee.
Farhan, the commission spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that his members had interviewed witnesses in several coastal areas and had two more cities to visit.
All witnesses said they felt under pressure from leaving Al Kadam specifically because they were Alavites. Some already had.
A young resident said that armed men came to his home several times during the weeks after Assad was expelled, demanding proof that the family had the house and was not related to the family of the Oblong family.
Since then, he and his family have fled, asking the Sunni Muslim neighbors to take care of their home.
Others said they stopped working or moving only during the day to avoid possible arrest.
Another woman of the sixties said she wanted to sell her house in Al Kadam because of the risks that would be laid on her husband or sons. “After what happened, all I want is to leave the area.”
(Reporting by Maya Gebel, Timur Ajari and Ferras Dalati; Editing by Daniel Flyn)