A Genocide Against Syrian Christians Has Begun, Say Witnesses

The streets of Latakia are empty now. Reuters reports that Syria’s coastal regions, once bustling with life, have erupted in the worst violence since Bashar al-Assad’s fall from power. Syrian Christians, in the land since the first Century, are being slaughtered.

“I feel a mix of both fear and anticipation for what lies ahead in Syria, but I feel certain that migration is the only option,” Ruwayda, a 36-year-old Christian from Latakia, told AFP. She spoke in whispers. Like many others here, she’s afraid of being overheard.

Nobody saw it coming this fast. Last Thursday, Alawite gunmen loyal to the deposed Assad regime ambushed government forces. By sunrise, the coastal region had descended into chaos. What began as scattered fighting quickly spiraled into what Euronews reports as a massacre. Three days. More than 1,300 dead.

The numbers tell only part of the story. France 24 reports that among the dead are a father and son, gunned down on their morning drive to Latakia. Four family members, killed in their own home. A priest’s father, murdered in Baniyas. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X confirmed it during Sunday’s sermon: “many innocent Christians were also killed” alongside Alawites.

“We are very anxious. People’s faces are pale with fear,” says Heba, a Christian teacher. She insisted on using a pseudonym. Smart move. The Christian Post has documented how quickly targets can be identified through social media here. Videos are already circulating of fighters – speaking in non-Syrian Arabic dialects – threatening both Christians and Alawites.

Syria’s new government seems powerless to stop it. Sure, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa promised to protect minorities when his group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took power. But promises are cheap. Action is what matters. With no official police force or army, there’s little to prevent the revenge killings that have become almost routine.

The local church pastors tried their best to calm everyone down. “Don’t be carried away by rumors,” they said after meeting security officials. Nice words. Empty ones. The Christian community here has seen this movie before. Before Syria’s civil war in 2011, they numbered about a million strong, according to analyst Fabrice Balanche. Now? Maybe 300,000. On a good day.

Gabriel gets it. He’s 37, single, and kicking himself for not leaving when he had the chance. “I’m not reassured about my future and I don’t dare get married and have children in this place,” he told me. A decade ago, he could have moved to Canada. Now he’s stuck here, watching what Barron’s reports as an increasingly desperate situation for Christians in the region.

Sure, there are checkpoints now outside the Alawite neighborhoods in Latakia. The streets are quieter. Calmer, even. But it’s a dead kind of quiet. In the Christian districts, people peek through curtains instead of chatting on stoops. One resident – who wouldn’t give his name, for obvious reasons – told me his family hasn’t left home since the violence started. Their doors are locked. They’re afraid of who might come knocking.

The three patriarchs of Syria’s largest churches issued their usual calls for “national reconciliation” and “equal citizenship.” They want “a state that respects all its citizens.” But walk through Latakia’s Christian quarter today, and you’ll hear a different story. For Syria’s Christians, who have pleaded for protection since the conflict began, it’s told in the sound of suitcases being packed, in whispered goodbyes, in the quiet acceptance that maybe, just maybe, two thousand years of Christian presence in Syria is coming to an end.

–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice | Verifiable research strengthened by the Metro Voice AI assistant.