Security forces were sent to the Christian town of Suqaylabiyah in central Syria at the weekend after young Sunnis from a nearby area went there and started a fight, residents and state media said.
It was the second incident of sectarian violence in the region this year. The Syrian government, led by Sunnis, has made improving relations with the US its top priority. This has helped spare Christians the violence suffered by other minorities, mainly the Druze and Alawites, since the downfall of the regime of Bashar Al Assad in December 2024.
State television said the security personnel were sent in after a “brawl among young people” in Suqaylabiyah on Saturday “during which an attack on a shop occurred”. Security forces were also sent to the Sunni town of Qalaat Al Madiq, where the men lived, 4km to the north.
The Hama Governorate described the violence as a result of “systematic incitement among the components of the Syrian people”. State TV said that “calm has returned to Suqaylabiyah after the brawl was contained and several of those involved were arrested”. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Video on social media purportedly showed the scene of the brawl near a square in Suqaylabiyah, with a fire lit in the street and at least one young man holding a stick. Separate footage showed a group of young men trying to break into a shop. A photo showed security personnel wearing flak jackets and carrying automatic weapons, standing in front of an Interior Ministry lorry in the town.
Suqaylabiyah, in the Ghab Plain of Hama, has about 16,000 inhabitants who are mainly Greek Orthodox. Its population was down from 20,000 in December 2024. Many loyalists of the regime in the town fled after the downfall of Al Assad.
That regime, dominated by members of the Alawite sect, sought to build a so-called “alliance of minorities”, especially during the 2011-2024 civil war.
It recruited some Christians from Suqaylabiyah during the war into a local brigade of the National Defence Forces, a main loyalist auxiliary. The town's association with the bygone order contributed to tension between Suqaylabiyah and its mostly Sunni surroundings after December 2024.
When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Syria had about 850,000 Christians, about 4.5 per cent of the population. They are mainly divided between Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and Catholics of the Greek Melkite, Maronite, Chaldean and Armenian churches.
The new Syrian government has faced an array of challenges in bringing the multi-ethnic country under its control. Tensions with the Kurds, Alawites and Druze minorities have at times spiralled into open violence.
Syria is also eager to contain the influence of Lebanon's Hezbollah and smuggling across their shared border. Lebanon's army said last week that it had seized almost 250kg of explosives being smuggled over the border from Syria.
With tensions high, Reuters reported last week that Syria and Hezbollah had held a secret meeting in Turkey in an attempt to calm matters. Turkey and Syria both denied the meeting had taken place.
