Kidnapped, abused: Reports of missing Alawite women in Syria
Maissun Melhem

Dozens of Syrian Alawite women are missing — thought to have been abducted or worse. Motives behind the suspected abductions are thought to be political and criminal.

 

Nora looks into the camera, her baby on her lap. She looks thin, her hair and eyebrows have been shaved off and she has scars on her face. The first pictures of the woman, taken after her release from captivity, were immediately spread on social media.

Nora — her real name has been withheld for security and privacy reasons — is one of dozens of women from the Syrian Alawite minority thought to have been kidnapped. She has since left the country.

Nora says she was held in a basement for around a month, where she was physically and psychologically brutalized. She was in the coastal city of Jableh, with her 11-month-old baby, on the way to an aid center when she was stopped by a car with Idlib license plates, filled with masked men. They asked her where she came from and when she said she was Alawite, she was dragged into the car and blindfolded.

"Every day I was abused and beaten, so much so that I lost consciousness," Nora told DW. While imprisoned, her baby was taken away from her and she was told she should sign a marriage contract. "I refused to do so, I'm already married," she explained. "After that they treated me with even more brutality."

Photos of her beatings were sent to her family as a way to blackmail them into sending ransom money. After her family paid a large ransom, Nora was set free. Today she lives outside of Syria and is being treated for serious gynecological problems. 

Similar incidents reported

Nora's story has been repeated elsewhere. News agency Reuters has reported on other abductions of Alawite women and conducted detailed interviews with families of the missing women. "Detailed interviews with the families of 16 of the missing women and girls found that seven of them are believed to have been kidnapped, with their relatives receiving demands for ransoms ranging from $1,500 to $100,000," Reuters reported. "There has been no word on the fate of the other nine."

The United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has also documented several cases.

The commission "documented abductions by unknown individuals of at least six Alawi women this spring in several Syrian governorates," the chair of the commission Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told the UN Human Rights Council at the end of last month. "The whereabouts of at least two of these women remain unknown, while the commission has received credible reports of more abductions. Investigations into some of these incidents were opened by the interim authorities."

At the time of writing, Syria's Ministry of the Interior had not replied to enquires on the subject, nor did they reply to Reuters' enquiries.

Syrian activist Bassel Younus, who lives in Sweden, told DW he's documented around 40 missing women. He monitors human rights abuses in Syria and notes that the majority of the women abducted were from the Alawite community.

The Alawite minority has come under attack since the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, whose family — the long time authoritarian leaders of the country — come from the Alawite community themselves. Some Islamist extremists see Alawites as apostates. Other Syrians believe the Alawites to have been supporters of the country's former dictator. 

In March, Syria saw a major outbreak of violence against the Alawite community after supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad launched attacks on the new Syrian security forces. Hundreds of the security forces were killed. In the ensuing violence, an estimated further 1,500 people were killed and it's thought that at least some of the perpetrators had links to the new Syrian government.

The country's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa created a committee to investigate the violence but as yet, it has produced no results.

The incidents with Alawite women are not a coincidence, Younus said. "They are a symbol of the subjugation of an entire community," he explained. Nora also recalls being called names, like "pig" and "infidel," while she was in captivity.

DW attempted to speak with more than a dozen victims' families over the course of several weeks, although many of them didn't want to go on the record due to fear, shame or uncertainty.

Sami, a young man from a village near the west Syrian city of Tartus, was one of the few that would speak to media, albeit with his last name kept confidential. 

His 28-year-old sister, Iman — her name has also been changed to protect her identity — disappeared without a trace after she drove into the city one day. Shortly afterwards the family got a call from an international phone number in which an anonymous voice told them: "forget Iman, she will never return."

Sami contacted the local police but they told him that in many of these cases, the women were having a secret love affair and had simply run away from their families. But a few days later, the kidnapper got in touch again and this time demanded a five-figure ransom.

The family managed to borrow the money and sent it to Turkey using the so-called "hawala" system, an informal network of money transfers that relies on private individuals passing cash onwards. That makes trying to trace where the ransom money ended up difficult, although documents sighted by DW show that the first recipients were Syrian refugees in Turkey. But for Sami and his family, paying the money didn't help. After they sent the cash, contact was broken off and there's been no further sign of Iman.

 Sex slave rumors

Maya, 21, is another young woman who was kidnapped, together with her younger sister, near Tartus. Her name has also been changed to protect her privacy. In March the two girls were on the way to do some shopping when they were stopped by masked men with guns.

"They asked us if we were Alawite or Sunni," Maya says. "When we said 'Alawite,' they pulled us into a van without license plates."

They were blindfolded and driven for what seemed like hours. During the trip, they were insulted as "unbelievers" and as remnants of the Assad regime. The kidnappers told them they were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of their colleagues, anti-Assad fighters, Maya remembers.

The sisters were held in a basement and Maya says they were frightened they would be sold as slaves. Syrian social media is buzzing with suggestions that the kidnapped Alawite women are being sold at "slave markets," in the same way that female members of the Yazidi minority were "sold" by the extremist "Islamic State" group when they came to power in Iraq and Syria. However it is also clear that a lot of Assad regime supporters, both inside and outside the country, are pushing these kinds of rumors for their own political ends. 

"So far we have no evidence that Alawite women have been systematically enslaved, as was the case with Yazidi women back then," Bassam Alahmad, executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, told DW. But he says religious affiliation is increasingly playing a role in kidnappings and murders. "Alawite women are now being targeted because of their religion and there's a parallel to the Yazidi women in this," he explained.

The heart of the problem though, he adds, is that the Alawite community is being targeted for real or assumed links to the Assad regime.

Maya and her sister were eventually released. It is unclear why they were let go but after two months, they were allowed to return to their family. They survived, although many other women are still missing.

This story was originally published in German.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/kidnapped-abused-reports-of-missing-alawite-women-in-syria/a-73217254

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

Syria signs $800m Tartous Port deal with DP World
The deal follows a wave of western-backed reintegration moves, with the UAE as a key broker in Syria’s return to global markets

News Desk

 

Syria has signed an $800-million agreement with Dubai-based DP World to redevelop the Tartous Port, state media reported on 13 July. 

The deal was signed in Damascus in the presence of self-appointed Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The agreement grants DP World a 30-year term to operate and upgrade Tartous, one of Syria’s most strategic coastal hubs. Syrian officials say the deal is part of a wider push to modernize the country’s logistics infrastructure.

“This strategic move will bolster our port operations and logistics services,” an unnamed Syrian official told SANA. Qutaiba Badawi, chairman of the General Authority for Land and Sea Ports, called the deal “a new phase of field and maritime work in Syria.”

DP World chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem said the agreement would position Tartous as a global transport node. 

“Syria possesses valuable assets,” he said, adding, “The port of Tartous will be one of the best in the world, particularly in transport and cargo handling services.”

According to Badawi, the contract was the result of months of negotiations and was structured to be “tight, fair and transparent.” 

The agreement includes infrastructure and technological upgrades to expand Tartous’s cargo capacity and support the recovery of Syria’s industrial and commercial sectors.

The Tartous contract follows a series of high-value agreements signed in recent months, including a 30-year deal with France’s CMA CGM to operate Latakia Port and a $7-billion energy contract with Qatari, Turkish, and US firms to restore the power grid.

The US lifted most of its sanctions on Syria last month, citing what it called “positive actions” by Sharaa’s administration.

US President Donald Trump has revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation for the Nusra Front, later known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), according to a State Department memo filed on 7 July.

In December 2024, HTS – under the leadership of Ahmad al-Sharaa (who went by the name Abu Mohammad al-Julani when he was still an ISIS chief) – successfully ousted former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and took power in Damascus. 

On 7 June, Syria was reinstated to the SWIFT banking system, as Damascus began implementing financial reforms under Central Bank Governor Abdul Qader al-Husriya.

Interim President Sharaa held a meeting with Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi in Abu Dhabi on 7 July. A Syrian source said the meeting “was not their first” and described it as a “significant development” in ongoing indirect negotiations between Tel Aviv and Damascus.

The Tartous Port deal comes seven months after HTS declared the ousting of the Assad government following its capture of Damascus and the flight of former president Bashar al-Assad.

https://thecradle.co/articles/syria-signs-800m-tartous-port-deal-with-dp-world

 

 

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MEANWHILE:

Note: This article contains disturbing graphic images and detailed descriptions of violence and civilian harm. Reader discretion is advised.

On the afternoon of 7 March, gunmen from factions affiliated with the Al-Qaeda rooted Syrian government stormed the Alawite village of Sharifa in Latakia governorate. Joined by armed Sunni civilians from neighboring villages, they massacred 30 people and systematically looted and torched homes and shops over the course of three days.

The victims include three women and 27 men. Twelve were over the age of 50, the oldest a 96-year-old farmer.

Residents of Sharifa speaking to The Cradle provided testimony of the events that took place, as well as photographs of the bodies of 24 of the victims. 

A pattern of massacres

The massacre in Sharifa was one of many carried out by Syrian government-affiliated armed factions in Alawite villages and cities on Syria’s coast that day. 

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least 1600 Alawite civilians were murdered in at least 55 separate massacres over a three-day period starting on 7 March. The massacres were accompanied by the systematic looting and burning of Alawite homes.

Many videos of the killing of Alawites were taken and posted to social media by the perpetrators themselves. Dozens of videos went viral showing gunmen forcing unarmed Alawite men to crawl on the ground, barking like dogs, and executing them in the streets.

The Syrian government, led by former Al-Qaeda and ISIS commander Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani), promised to investigate the massacres. But four months on, no serious inquiry has materialized, and no arrests have been made, despite clear evidence implicating leaders from factions incorporated into the Syrian Ministry of Defense and General Security.

In one prominent case, video and photographic evidence place Hasan Abu Qasra, the head of the Syrian Government-controlled petroleum company and a close relative of Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, among the forces coordinating the massacres on the ground. 

According to a 30 June investigation by Reuters, “The chain of command led to Damascus.”

Instead of seeking to hold the killers accountable, Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shaibani blamed Alawites themselves. When speaking at the UN three weeks later, he claimed “regime remnants” had carried out the massacres.

After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces led by Sharaa toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, many warned that such massacres of Alawite civilians would take place.

While under Sharaa’s command, HTS (previously known as the Al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front) committed similar massacres throughout the 14-year war to topple the Syrian government. The massacres were driven in part by the Nusra Front’s genocidal ideology, inspired by the sectarian writings of the medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah. 

In August 2013, militants from the Nusra Front, ISIS, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) raided ten Alawite villages in Latakia, slaughtering 190 civilians, including 57 women, 18 children, and 14 elderly men, while taking another 200 hostage, Human Rights Watch reported.

During an interview with Al-Jazeera in 2015, Sharaa (then known as Julani) vowed to kill any Alawites who refused to convert to Sunni Islam. 

Making good on this promise became possible once Sharaa took power in Damascus in December 2024.

In the following months, Syria’s Alawites were systematically disarmed, as former Alawite members of the army and security services were required to hand in their weapons as part of a mandatory “reconciliation” process. 

In January and February, armed factions affiliated with Sharaa’s HTS-led government carried out a series of massacres of Alawites across the Latakia, Homs, and Hama countrysides, including in the villages of Arzeh and Fahel.

In February, a member of an armed faction belonging to the Ministry of Defense, the Suleiman Shah Brigade, or “Amshat,” told The Cradle, “We would kill every Alawite in Syria now, but the media coverage would be too bad.”

The mass killing of Alawites, now known as the “Coastal Massacres,” including in Sharifa, unfolded just weeks later, on 7 March, under the pretext of suppressing an insurgency led by the “regime remnants.”

The Sharifa Massacre

Sharifa is a small Alawite village located in the Latakia countryside between the Sunni town of Al-Haffa, home to the impressive Saladin Castle, and the M4 Highway, which connects Latakia to Idlib, Aleppo, and northeast Syria.

Residents recounted the chain of events to The Cradle. On the evening of 6 March, gunfire rang out near the village entrance. Two bodies were discovered: Raafat Hawat, a young Alawite from Sharifa, and Hussein Hamsho, a young Sunni from nearby Babanna. Though circumstances remain unclear, the Sunni man’s death became the pretext for the coming attack.

The same night, members of armed factions affiliated with the Syrian government began to gather at the entrance to Sharifa.

https://thecradle.co/articles/alawites-you-are-pigs-how-damascus-linked-forces-massacred-dozens-in-the-coastal-village-of-sharifa

 

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Latakia’s burning coast: Sectarian purge masked as ‘wildfire’ under Syria’s new government
As Syria’s new rulers exploit wildfire and war to reshape the coastal region, a campaign of arson and forced displacement threatens to extinguish Alawite presence from their ancestral lands

https://thecradle.co/articles/latakias-burning-coast-sectarian-purge-masked-as-wildfire-under-syrias-new-government

 

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READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.