No mass abduction of Alawite women in Syria, says investigation

Ministerial committee reports that only one out of 42 abduction cases investigated was substantiated

A woman holds a sign reading 'Alawites are our brothers and family' during a demonstration in March against sectarian violence. AFP

An investigation by Syria's Interior Ministry has found that all but one of the 42 cases of alleged abductions of women from the minority Alawite community were unfounded, a spokesman said.

The cases, which were examined by a high-ranking ministerial committee, were based either on complaints made to the police or on social media reports that had caused a "stir", Noureddine Al Baba told reporters on Sunday.

The committee was set up in July amid mounting reports of Alawite women being kidnapped, with families in some cases reporting that they had received demands for large ransoms. Alawites have faced attacks and other forms of reprisal after the overthrow last year of the former dictator Bashar Al Assad, who is a member of the minority sect.

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Mr Al Baba said the ministry reached its conclusions after taking testimony from witnesses and visiting the locations of the alleged abductions in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, and Hama and Homs provinces in central Syria.

"It turned out that 41 of these cases were not abductions," Mr Al Baba said, adding that what was "rumoured" about widespread abductions of Alawite women was "totally untrue".

"There was only one case of a real crime of abduction," he said. "The girl was returned safely after the security forces followed up on the case. A search is ongoing to identify the perpetrators."

Claims of Alawite women being abducted began to surface at the beginning of the year as security forces started operations in areas with Alawite population concentrations, on the coast and in the centre of the country, in pursuit of what officials described as regime remnants. At least 1,300 Alawite civilians were killed in the operations, most of them during two days in March when government troops and affiliated militias entered the coastal areas in what the government said was an operation to neutralise a nascent insurgency.

Syrian government forces travel along a road in Latakia province during battles in March with fighters from ousted leader Bashar Al Assad's Alawite sect. Reuters

Mr Al Baba said that a dozen of the 42 cases investigated were found to be "voluntary escape with a passion partner". Nine cases were the "short absences" of women who were away with relatives and friends for less than 48 hours. Six cases involved women seeking to escape family violence, another six turned out to be false claims on social media, and four were linked to "prostitution or embezzlement", he said.

Four cases were related to a “capital offence” and arrests were made, he said, without providing details.

The committee's work covered abductions reported between January 1 and September 10. Mr Al Baba called on people who had more cases to report to come forward.

"We are very interested in data and information about unregistered cases to find out if they are really abductions so the perpetrators can face justice," he said.

Mohammad Al Zuaiter, an Alawite civic leader from the coastal region, said there might have been some cases that were not abductions but, given the presence of security forces and loyalist militias in the areas where the suspected abductions occurred, the findings of the government’s investigation appeared to be “self-serving”.

“This was obviously not an independent investigation, and there was no international party to it either,” Mr Al Zuaiter said. “But it gives the authorities room to manoeuvre by telling the world that they conducted an inquiry, especially since the abductions have subsided in the last four months,” he said. Forced disappearances of Alawite men are still taking place, he pointed out.

Outbreaks of violence have marred attempts to establish ties between the new central authorities and most of the country's minorities, particularly Alawites, Druze and Kurds.

The removal of the former regime was engineered by the current President Ahmad Al Shara, who led his Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) group and allied fighters on an 11-day offensive to take Damascus. HTS was formerly a splinter group of Al Qaeda, and the new government's combat forces are entirely Sunni.

In July, the office of the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Syria said that its experts had "grave concern over alarming reports of targeted abductions, disappearances and gender-based violence against women and girls, particularly from the Alawite community".

The victims were as young as three, and reportedly abducted in "broad daylight while travelling to school, visiting relatives or in their homes". Some families received threats and were discouraged from pursuing investigations or speaking out publicly, it said.