“Roads full of corpses”: the terrified Alawites in Syria run away from attacks

For two days, Rihab Kamel and her family hid terrified in their bathroom in Baniyas, while armed people stormed the neighborhood, following the members of the Alawite minority in Syria.

The coastal city is part of Alawite Heartland in Syria, which has been gathered by the worst violence since the former President Bashar al-Assad has been overturned in December.

“We extinguished the lights and hid. When we managed to run from our Al-Qusour neighborhood, we found the roads full of corpses,” Kamel, a 35-year-old mother, for AFP.

A Christian family housed her and then helped her reach the border with Lebanon, she said, adding that they were planning to run over the border.

“What crime did the children hire? Are they also supporters of the regime (overturned)?” she said. “We, that Alawite is innocent.”

Violence broke out on Thursday, after Assad’s loyal shipowners attacked the new security forces in Syria. The clashes that followed led to dozens of deaths on both sides.

The war monitoring the Syrian observer for human rights later reported that the security forces and the Allied groups killed at least 745 Alawite civilians from the provinces of Latakia and Tartus.

Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Ham, who led the offensive of the lightning that she overturned, on Sunday demanded to be kept “National Unit (and) Civil Peace.”

“God wants, we will be able to live together in this country,” he said at a mosque in Damascus.

But in villages and cities on the coast, people talked about systematic killings.

– “minutes” from death –

Assad, himself a Alawite, sought to present himself as a protector of minorities in Syria.

The new authorities have repeatedly promised an inclusive transition that protects the rights of religious minorities.

The Alawite Heartland was, however, caught up in fear of reprisals during the decades of the Assad clan of brutal governance.

Samir Haidar, a 67 -year -old Baniyas resident, told AFP two of his brothers and his nephew were killed by “armed groups” who entered the people’s homes.

Although he himself a Alawite, Haidar belonged to the left opposition under Assads and has been closed for more than a decade.

He said that he began to hear explosions and firearms on Friday morning, with the arrival of the forces held in the city, adding that there are “strangers among them”.

“They entered the building and killed my only neighbor,” he said.

He managed to escape with his wife and two children in a Sunit neighborhood, but said: “If I were delayed by five minutes, I would have been killed.”

The same day, the armed men entered the building of his brother at 100 meters (meters) away.

“They gathered all the people on the roof and opened fire on them,” Haidar said.

“My nephew survived because he was hiding, but my brother was killed with all the people in the building.”

He added that another brother, who was 74, and the nephew were killed with all the men in their building.

“There are houses with four or five corpses in them,” Haidar said.

“We called to be able to bury our deaths,” he said, adding that so far he could not bury his brothers.

– “bodies in the sea” –

In the city of Port Latakia, AFP has heard testimonies from residents who said that armed groups have abducted a series of Alawite that were killed.

Among them was the head of a state cultural center, Yasser Sabbouh, who was abducted and whose corpse was thrown outside his house, said an AFP reporter.

In Jableh further south, a resident spoke with AFP in tears, saying that they were terrorized by armed groups that took control of the city.

“We are six of us in the house, with my parents and my brothers. There were no four -day electricity, no water. We have nothing to eat and we dare not,” he said in anonymous conditions, fearing for his safety.

“More than 50 people in my family and friends were killed,” he added. “They gathered bodies with bulldozers and buried them in mass graves.”

Jaafar Ali, a 32 -year -old Alawite from the region fled to the neighboring Lebanon with his brother.

“I don’t think I’m back soon,” he said. “We are refugees without a homeland. We want the countries to open (channels for) humanitarian migration for Alawites.”