Syrian Christians are living in “total fear” following a wave of violence that left over 2,000 people dead in March.
Christians and other religious minorities in Syria are sounding the alarm in what rights groups describe as some of the worst atrocities since the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
Starvation is also being used as a weapon, with Christian workers reportedly being denied pay, according to The Christian Post.
“Christians are living in total fear,” said a Syrian Christian to TBF Trust, a Christian charity. TBF reports that there is “lawlessness and chaos. Dozens of competing groups of Islamist fighters are at large on the streets, some of them accountable to leadership, others just running amok”.
The main target of the fighters are currently the Alawites, the peaceable Islamic sect to which deposed President Bashar al-Assad belonged. All but nine victims of the recent 2,261 killings that have actually been documented were Alawites. But Christians and Alawites often live in the same neighbourhoods and therefore Christians share in the terror aimed at the Alawites. Christians also realise that they are being spared only because the new government of Syria is hoping for financial support from European governments. The new government, however, is actually a Sunni jihadist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
“Christians are living in total fear… lawlessness and chaos” (a Syrian Christian)
The UK Government has sent £50 million to Syria’s new regime, while Germany was the first EU nation to act, pledging €300m for food, healthcare and other civilian needs. On 17 March, Politico.eu reported that EU countries would continue supporting Syria’s new leadership through financial aid and sanctions relief. The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, confirmed that the bloc would continue lifting sanctions.
TBF Trust warns that if that support does not come, the guns will be turned directly on the Christians.
Viral videos from the region depicted harrowing scenes of mass graves, executions, bound bodies and devastated villages. Christians are seen by Islamist factions as politically and ideologically aligned with the former regime and as obstacles to the establishment of an Islamist-led government.
Vans with loudspeakers urging conversion to Islam have been filmed driving through a Christian district of Damascus. “Already they are being pressured to convert to Islam,” reports TBF Trust. “The Christians are asking, ‘If it is like this when we are not the main targets, what will it be like when we become a main target?’”
The famous Syrian actor, Bashar Ismail, in an interview with Sky News claimed that 22,000 Alawites and Chjristiaqns have been murdered by the Jihadi regime. His own family members were also murdered in the city of Jableh.
While reports from the world’s media and official Church sources remain muted, the independent Christian press has not. The Christian Post reported that the violence has only exacerbated concerns among Syria’s Christians, some of whom have already faced “intensified discrimination,” not only in this conflict but also since the Assad regime fell in December.
Syria’s new regime has declared that Sharia law will be its sole legal system and that the head of state must be a Muslim. Syria is now strictly organised with a hierarchy of extremist Muslim clerics who control every town, village and city neighbourhood, even those whose inhabitants are mainly Christians.