Syrian Alawis sheltering in Lebanon say it isn't safe to return home

In a refugee camp fashioned from an abandoned school in northern Lebanon, Hitham sits sighing, recalling how different her life was in Syria just a week ago. She told Middle East Eye that only days before, she had been living securely in Syria, but now she is displaced and living as a refugee.

"On Thursday, we saw on Facebook that [armed groups] wanted to attack our area in Sahel Akkar," she told Middle East Eye. "We didn't believe it because it was Facebook, and most of the information there is false." However, the reality was more brutal than she imagined, with the threat drawing ever closer.

That evening, she was drinking maté, a South American beverage popular in the Levant, with some relatives when Syrian government airstrikes began to fall nearby. "Bullets were coming from everywhere, like rain," she said. Initially, she was hesitant to leave her home in Sahel Akkar, which is close to the border between Syria and northern Lebanon.

Hitham and other Alawites around her began receiving threatening messages. "Some people started sending us threats on Facebook Messenger, saying, 'Wait, we'll come for you at Suhoor,'" she said, referring to the pre-dawn meal Muslims eat during Ramadan. It was then that she and many others decided it was time to flee to Lebanon, taking refuge in the Alawite town of Massoudiyeh in northern Lebanon.

The violence on the Syrian coast over the past week has left hundreds dead in the bloodiest episode since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in early December. What began as a relentless assault on coastal areas by Assad loyalists, many from the former president's Alawite sect, quickly spiraled into retaliatory attacks on civilians, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced.

Civilians belonging to the Alawite sect have been particularly targeted. Tensions have been high in the region since Assad's ouster, with Alawites saying they have been the victims of sporadic retaliatory attacks. The UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said Assad loyalists, Syrian government forces, and Sunni armed groups were involved in what it called "extrajudicial executions."

The Syrian government announced on Sunday that it was ending military operations against loyalist militants, with interim President Ahmed Shala pledging to "hold accountable with full determination anyone involved in the shedding of civilian blood, abuse of civilians, exceeding the authority of the state, or exploiting power for personal gain."

Badriya fled her small town of Lancia, saying that armed men began driving around shooting "children and adults" who were Alawite. While she and her family escaped unharmed, Suleiman was not so lucky in Alameen, a village in the countryside of Hama. "When they arrived in our village, they started breaking into houses," he told Middle East Eye. "I personally lost four family members."

His relatives lived on the main street of the village. Suleiman considers himself lucky, he said, because his house was behind theirs, giving him and his family more time to escape. Like others, Suleiman fled through the countryside, avoiding the roads for fear of being stopped at checkpoints. "It took us a day and a half to reach this village," he said, referring to Massoudiyeh.

Imad Labaki, the governor of Lebanon's northernmost Akkar province, said on Monday that more than 1,400 families, totaling more than 6,000 people, had entered the province in recent days. Ali Ali, the mayor of Massoudiyeh, told Middle East Eye that Massoudiyeh alone is currently hosting at least 550 families.

The Syrians arriving in Lebanon enter by crossing the Kabir River, which marks the largely uncontrolled border between northern Lebanon and Syria. "We put on our clothes, packed some things, and left at 4 am. We came to the river. Women and children were falling in the water, and people were screaming," Badriya said.

Some of them sometimes return to the river to connect to Syrian mobile networks to contact relatives. "Last night, I went near the river to connect to the network and spoke to a relative who is currently hiding in Masyaf. He told me, 'My father was killed, and my wife and children are trapped in the village, and they are not letting anyone out,'" Suleiman said.

Now in Lebanon, many displaced Alawites say they refuse to return to Syria for the time being, despite the relative calm, because they do not trust the new government. "How can we go back if the situation does not become safer or more stable?" Suleiman said. "After the regime was overthrown, they massacred us and then promised us safety, but there is no safety."

Assad's ouster has led to several sporadic attacks on Alawite communities, while the government has launched a campaign to hunt down what they say are remaining Assad holdouts. Despite Shala's promise to create a system that includes Syria's various religious and ethnic groups, Alawites say they continue to face varying degrees of sectarian violence, even before the recent escalation.

"We don't trust Julani or his people," Suleiman added, referring to Shala's former alias, Abu Mohammed al-Julani. Hitham, from Sahel Akkar, echoed this sentiment, saying she believes the new government harbors hatred towards Alawites.

"If the UN or the Arab League intervenes and implements a proper solution that protects the rights of Alawites, we will return," Hitham said. Others in the shelter echoed calls for international protection. Abu Hussein, who lost six relatives in the town of Azzeh, northwest of Hama, also called on the international community to pressure for a non-Islamist Syrian government.

"We want a civil state, a civil government, and a civil constitution," he said. "Syria is a garden, and the beauty of the garden is in its different flowers, as long as one flower is not higher than the others."