Alawites trickling back to their heartland after mass killings

Violence that killed more than 1,300 civilians has faded but fears of renewed attacks persist

An Alawite family rides in the back of a pick-up truck to return home to Latakia, Syria. Reuters

Residents of the Syria's Alawite heartland have begun trickling back to their homes after fleeing sectarian killings in the past 10 days, witnesses said on Sunday, but fears still grip the coastal areas of a repetition of the mass killings that sparked international condemnation and calls for the new government to protect the country's minorities.

At least 1,400 civilians, mostly Alawites, were killed after the government launched an offensive on March 6 to spread control throughout the west coast, ancestral home to the minority. The attacking forces were led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the religious-political group that was instrumental in overthrowing president Bashar Al Assad on December 8.

Witnesses in the coastal cities of Latakia and Baniyas, mixed between Alawites and Sunnis, told The National HTS-led security forces have in the past 48 hours accompanied dozens of Alawite civilians back to their districts. The offensive, which involved arbitrary executions, looting and arson, prompted thousands of Alawites to flee. Most headed for the highlands, Lebanon and to the Russian Hmeimim airbase, a relic of an era when Moscow was dominant in Syria.

Security personnel inspect vehicles at a checkpoint set up to confiscate stolen items, in Latakia, Syria. Reuters

"There is shortage of transportation because so many cars and buses were stolen," said an Alawite resident of Baniyas. He said HTS had put up numerous barriers, partly guarded by foreign fighters, on the main road from Baniyas to the Alawite mountains, a main destination of the displaced.

Many in the Alawite areas of Baniyas have run out of money and food, although one bakery in the Qusour area has been providing bread free of charge, he said.

"We have been through a catastrophe, and they [HTS] are still humiliating us," he said, pointing out that Alawites are being asked at road blocks about their sect, with reports of abductions and disappearances continuing.

"No one dares venture outside their home, except perhaps in the morning," he said. "Baniyas is a ghost city."

Security forces stand near the gate of Hmeimim airbase in Latakia, Syria. Reuters

An engineer who lives in Latakia said that he went to work on Sunday, for the first time in ten days, at a building material company on the road south of the Russian Hmeimim airbase. HTS had placed at the entrance of the city cars that were stolen and recovered for their owners to identify them. "There were some microbuses on the road with people coming back from Hmeimim," he said.

There was no immediate information on whether any of the estimated 10,000 Alawites who fled to Lebanon this month have gone back.

Syria is majority Sunni. Out of its 20 million population in 2010, the year before the civil war, Alawites numbered an estimated one million people. But the sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, had dominated power in Syria for the past six decades until Mr Assad was ousted on December 8. HTS, now in control of the country, was once linked to Al Qaeda. Among its ranks are thousands of foreign fighters who have traditionally spearheaded its offensive operations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio blamed “radical Islamist terrorists” for the mass killings in the west coast area. He said Syrian authorities "must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable”.

Other minorities have also been stung by the campaign. On Thursday, Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri, spiritual leader of the Druze Unitarian community, criticised the new authorities in Damascus, calling the government "extremist, wanted men". Despite open channels with the UN and many European countries, HTS, and its chief, Syrian leader Ahmad Al Shara, remain listed as terrorists by Washington, the UN and the EU.