Syria Massacre Leaves Christians Asking If They're Next – Christianity Today

Adi Oweis was lounging with his young folk in his Maryland dwelling last week when his phone lit up with alerts from pals in Syria. Islamists connected to the brand new govt had been on their system to the nation’s coastal Alawite pickle.

Graphic videos soon arrived in his team chats: whole families slaughtered and row after row of useless Syrians lining the streets. One of the well-known victims had been his Alawite pals.

Now he fears for the manner ahead for the Syrian church.

Oweis, who works for an global nonprofit considering interfaith dialogue, is a member of the Syrian Greek Orthodox community and lived in Damascus, Syria’s capital, until 2009. He was anxious by the violent campaign against folk he once lived amongst. Christianity On the brand new time agreed no longer to use his right name to supply protection to his Syrian family individuals.

Islamists killed extra than 1,300 folk, per the UK-based totally Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Many of the victims had been civilians from the Alawite community, the minority Shia sect to which dilapidated president Bashar al-Assad belongs. Clashes between govt forces and an armed remnant of Assad’s regime in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus last week ended in sectarian violence as Sunni militia descended on the pickle. Alawites, who held well-known positions below Assad’s rule, own a historical previous of dwelling aspect by aspect with Christians.

“It freaked us out,” Oweis said. “We couldn’t sleep. It was a really painful few days.” Oweis confirmed the deaths of ten Christians by means of his channels in Syria, nonetheless he doesn’t imagine the govt. forces and rogue militia are intentionally targeting the Christian community.

“They behold us as infidels, as folk that don’t imagine in what they imagine in,” Oweis said. “On the identical time, they don’t behold us as folk that persecuted them in the previous.”

Quiet, Syrian Christians are anxious, wondering if the brand new govt will target them subsequent.

The revenge killings mark the worst violence attributable to the December ouster of Assad. Ahmed al-Sharaa, in general diagnosed as al-Golani, led the Sunni motion to overthrow Assad and now serves as Syria’s period in-between president.

Many Syrians welcomed the quit of Assad’s 24-year grip on energy. His Ba’ath birthday party ruled for extra than five decades and was responsible of a host of atrocities against Syrians. But Sharaa’s dilapidated ties to al-Qaeda own raised concerns that Syrians may per chance well furthermore own exchanged one violent regime for but another. Christians and other minorities, in conjunction with Alawites, Kurds, and Druze, may per chance well furthermore face increasing threats, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Non secular Freedom at the Hudson Institute.

“There are no longer any restraints for the security of spiritual minorities,” said Shea, who served on the US Commission on Worldwide Non secular Freedom seven times. “It’s delivery season on them.”

Some experiences characterized Syria’s battle as ethnic in nature, nonetheless Shea believes faith is a important driver. She tracks Islamist regimes and has seen patterns of spiritual oppression in Iraq, Nigeria, and Syria.

“[The killings] may per chance well furthermore no longer be performed on orders, nonetheless I’d be a great deal stunned if the govt. protects Christians or someone else,” she said. Consistent with Shea, Sharaa has a tenuous abet on energy and directs a coalition of radicals that involves “hardened jihadist warring parties” from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and other worldwide locations.

She believes Syria’s period in-between president is an intensive Islamist who tasks a moderate image to the West to stable sanctions relief and abet.

“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, in conjunction with foreign jihadis, that murdered folk in western Syria in latest days,” US Secretary of Impart Marco Rubio said in a assertion Sunday. He called on the Syrian govt to pursue justice.

Sharaa’s place of work has said it would assemble an self sustaining committee to overview the killings by both facets. “No one will be above the legislation, and all these whose hands are stained with Syrian blood will face justice—rather and loyal away,” Sharaa said in a speech Sunday.

Oweis questions widely circulated social media posts describing a Christian slaughter, and he said experiences claiming a priest died all the map in which by means of the attacks are spurious. However he is aloof alive to referring to the manner ahead for Syria’s Christian community since Islamists demand Christians as “low-hanging fruit.”

“It’s a residence you may maybe per chance well plug to without any resistance attributable to they know that Christians don’t own fingers,” Oweis said. “And they keep no longer appear to be clustered in one place love the Alawites the place they are able to … withstand for a really very lengthy time.”

Oweis said Syrian forces looted a whole bunch of Christian homes all the map in which by means of the assault on Alawite communities between the coastal towns of Tartus and Latakia. Jihadis stormed the dwelling of Oweis’s buddy and spared his life after discovering his Christian identity. However they stole his vehicle.

Theft is so prevalent in Christian communities that churches often disguise their icons all the map in which by means of the week and recount them on Sundays utterly, Oweis said. Some icons are extra than 400 years ragged and extremely precious.

Shea said the Syrian Christian inhabitants has dwindled severely in the previous few decades and now numbers round 300,000. While no surveys had been achieved, Oweis said Catholic and Greek Orthodox estimates are extra optimistic and fluctuate from 600,000 to 1 million.

Despite the indiscriminate killings and focused theft, many Christians are picking to quit in Syria and abet a low profile, per Christians with connections in the nation. On the identical time, some experiences counsel that thousands of Syrians are crossing the border into Lebanon.

Folk that quit face threats on a pair of fronts.

A team of round 500 Kurdish Christians from the northern town of Afrin has been displaced a pair of times which potential of combating between Turkish militias and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said Majeed Kurdi, a US-based totally Iraqi Kurdish pastor working with Freedom Seekers Worldwide to provide abet to that team. Tensions increased when the brand new govt compelled armed groups to merge with the national defense force.

The Kurdish Christians, who’re for the time being dwelling in Aleppo, Syria, are segment of the nondenominational Upright Shepherd Church nonetheless for the time being have not any place to soundly meet. The church has added extra Kurds to its team on every occasion it has evacuated a town or refugee camp, and the team has now swelled to round 1,200, in conjunction with many nonbelievers who’re alive to about Christianity, per Kurdi.

However their topic is precarious.

“[The militias] are, typically, making an attempt to attack the Christians,” Kurdi said. “And especially they’re buying for the converted Muslims to Christianity.”

Kurdi said Turkish-backed mercenaries who oppose the Kurdish presence in the border pickle own kidnapped Kurds, in conjunction with women folk on their system to the market, as a long way south as Aleppo.

Oweis said the broader Christian community is the least-armed team in Syria. Now Christians wretchedness mobs connected to Sharaa’s ruling Islamist team, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, may per chance well furthermore flip against them in an instantaneous.

But Christians abet a measure of hope. “We are no longer staunch in the art of battle at all, nonetheless we are staunch in the art of peace,” Oweis said.

In some unspecified time in the future of Syria’s decades of turmoil, Christians own developed relationships with Alawites, Druze, and Sunni Muslims, Oweis said. Some Christian communities own sponsored dinners that bring diversified factions collectively.

On Monday, Sharaa claimed the revenge killings had been contained and vowed to bring these to blame to justice, nonetheless the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed the focused killings own since continued. Some Syrians ask Sharaa’s intentions, and Oweis knows the boulevard ahead will be refined and sophisticated.

However any quit will be but another for progress.

“The militias left the Alawite pickle, so we hope for reconciliation,” Oweis said. “For Christians, combating in an armed manner or resisting them is sort of very no longer likely, and it may maybe maybe per chance well furthermore result in a genocide for the Christian inhabitants.”