Alawite couple condemn reported killings, say victims have 'no relation to Assad'

Record ID: 1983394

  • Title: Alawite couple condemn reported killings, say victims have 'no relation to Assad'
  • Date: 13th March 2025
  • Summary: QAMISHLI, SYRIA (MARCH 13, 2025) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MARRIED ALAWITE COUPLE AND QAMISHLI RESIDENTS SHAZIA IBRAHIM AND HUSSEIN HAMO SITTING IN THEIR LIVING ROOM VARIOUS OF IBRAHIM AND HAMO SITTING WITH THEIR GRANDSON (SOUNDBITE)(Kurdish) 70-YEAR-OLD ALAWITE QAMISHLI RESIDENT, SHAZIA IBRAHIM, SAYING: "With the arrival of al-Golani (referring to Syria's interim president Ahm
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: ALAWITE MASSACRE SECURITY SYRIA
  • Location: QAMISHLI, SYRIA
  • City: QAMISHLI, SYRIA
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East
  • Reuters ID: LVA001861213032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: An elderly Alawite couple in Syria's Qamishli on Thursday (March 13) condemned what they described as "a massacre" in the coastal region and said the civilians who died have no relation to the Assad family.
    Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria's coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by rival groups, the U.N human rights office said on Tuesday (March 11).
    Pressure has been growing on Syria's Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where members of Assad's minority Alawite sect lived.
    "The Assad family fled and immigrated, but what did these people do to be exposed to these massacres?," said 70-year-old Shazia Ibrahim.
    Sitting next to his wife, Hussein Hamo, 74, added: "We are very upset about these massacres, because they are modest people and not from the Assad family."
    Violence began to spread through the coastal region, home to many Alawites, on Thursday (March 7), when Syria's Sunni Islamist-led government said its forces were attacked by remnants of the regime of Syria's ousted leader Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite.
    Security forces poured into the region to crush the insurrection, while mosques in areas loyal to the government issued calls for jihad, or holy struggle. During violence that followed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 1,200 civilians were killed, the vast majority of them Alawites.
    Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday (March 10) promised to punish those responsible, including his own allies if necessary. Sharaa said he could not yet say whether forces from the defence ministry - which has merged former rebels into one structure - were involved in the killings.
    (Production: Orhan Qereman, Kinda Makieh, Joelle Kozaily)
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