Meet Yusef, an Alawite Syrian who got away from the slaughtering fields

A glimpse into life before the fall of the old Assad regime and what it is now

All I did was introduce myself as an Israeli journalist and Yusef (not his real name), who wants the plight of the Alawites to be told to the world, quickly typed out a story that began thus:

They are killing us only because we are Alawite. Most of us are very poor people. After Assad fell on 8 December 2024, people ran away to the villages from the city. We thought the village would be a safe place.

I will go on with Yusef’s introductory story but already questions arose in my mind:

1. Were the Alawites in danger of revenge because President Assad was an Alawite?

2. What is an Alawite?

3. What were their lives like under Assad? Why were they poor if the Syrian president was from their sect? Should they not have got preferential treatment? And if not, why were they in danger from the new Syrian regime?

4. The answers to these questions will become clear over a number of articles as I explore the lives of Alawites to whom I was introduced by a university professor I know. Like my Alawite interviewees, he will remain anonymous to protect his contacts. If not for the relationship he had already developed with them, they would not have given me their trust so quickly and, ironically, I would not immediately have been convinced of their sincerity. I am a cynical Israeli and, after having seen how our enemies manipulate naïve Jews who want to believe that our enemy neighbours might really not want us dead, and how photos from Assad’s war have been shared for years on social media as if they were Gazans killed by Israel, I do not quickly believe and trust.

Yusef’s story continues:

A week ago two militants entered our village. They called out to two of my cousins and a 12-year-old boy and their father and two of their neighbours who were working in a greenhouse near the homes.

The militants belong to the new army, HTS [Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant]. They pretended they were lost because there’s a military base near the village. They asked my cousins for water and once finished, they shot and killed all six. Then they ran to the base in the mountain.

I was at home very close to where my cousins stood outside. I heard the gun shots and ran toward the small valley where they were killed. We found two of them still alive. We took them to the hospital, but they didn’t survive. The 12-year-old had nine bullets in his small thin body.

My kids were scared. I didn’t tell them about the crime. They could hear the shooting but they saw nothing. To this day, the people of my village do not dare go back to their houses. They realize that if they go back, they will be killed. And I took my family and escaped the country.

The new rulers in Syria pretend that they will investigate and arrest the killers, but they are lying. The killing is daily and is not recorded. They are killing the Alawite silently, the Christians also. They murdered a priest in the city where I lived.

Of the photos Yusef sent me, I am sharing only one, covering their faces, blurring the bodies, and pixelating the house in the background, hoping this is enough to protect Yusef’s anonymity and that of his neighbours and relatives. I wish you could see the angelic face of the young teenage boy who looks asleep and not dead, perhaps because the photo was taken so soon after his murder, but I will spare you. This photo is heartbreaking enough.

Photo sent to me by Yusef. I have covered the faces, blurred the figures, and pixelated the house in the background in order to protect the family’s identity.

Yusef told me the young boy was very smart and polite. He loved playing football when he had time but he had more important duties like helping his father in the greenhouse. He was murdered picking tomatoes.

After a few exchanges on a social media platform, upon learning that Yusef speaks good English, I asked if we could talk by Zoom and he agreed. He would not let me see his face but I heard his voice and, as a former psychotherapist, used to client telephone calls, I am attuned to the feelings behind the voice. For most of our conversation, Yusef’s voice was strong and steady but there were moments when he was overcome with sadness and pain as he related some family history to me. He lost his parents, first his father in 2007 and then his mother in 2017.

I wanted to know the man.

But first I wanted to understand a bit about the Alawites in general. In a separate article, I will discuss what I learned from Yusef and others about the Alawite religion and community and why they are being targeted for slaughter by the new regime. Here I will open the Alawite world to you via Yosef’s life story. Some of the demographic data have been altered in specifics but not in kind in order to protect his identity as he has family still in Syria. I will bring you Yusef’s words in first person narrative, as he told them to me over the time of our conversation.

I am in my late 30s, married, with three children between 6 and 13 years of age. I am a scientist and my wife works in the medical profession. I grew up in a small village on the Syrian coast with two brothers and three sisters. I am the youngest.

My father was a farmer and my mother a housewife who used to help my father on the farm. I did as well. My parents wanted us to study in university to be in a better situation than they were.

My grandfather was born in a small village in the high mountains but it was hard living there. The weather is harsh and the soil for farming is not good so they moved to the coastal region.

My grandfather was very smart and during the French mandate he learned French by talking with the French soldiers and building a good relationship with them. Because of this, he was the only Alawite able to own a shop.

Before the French Mandate, the Alawites were being killed by Sunni Moslems so when the Mandate came, they had some freedom. The cities were very small and, while the Sunnis and a few Christians owned shops, the Alawites did not dare own a shop; they bought and sold in the markets.

My grandfather became wealthy from his shop in comparison with other Alawite families. You could say he was middle class. Because he had ten children and could not divide the shop among them all, he sold it and bought land to give to my father and my aunts and uncles. They each had enough land to farm and earn a good living.

My mother was from a different town and she had relatives in my father’s town who she would visit frequently. That is how they met.

My father was a kind man who was trusting of others and he liked to help. While he was farming he also wanted to have a shop like his father. He opened a shop selling pesticides and fertilizers and nylon for the greenhouses. He was in partnership with someone from a remote area. Instead of being able to save money, he was in debt to the merchants he bought his goods from and he allowed the farmers to get away without paying for a year and more. Eventually he couldn’t pay the debts and, when I was 13, he went to prison for about nine months.

After having lost everything, he had to sell most of his land so we became poor. Before that, he had had olive trees and greenhouses with vegetables. After the losses, he would grow mainly tomatoes in greenhouses.

My mother tried to be strong, having all the responsibility for the farm and taking care of us while my father was in prison. My brothers and I helped on the farm. Later, during my university studies, I had to work on the farm to have money to pay my way. After I graduated, I got a job in my profession. My brothers and sisters all finished university and had jobs in their professions. But now, the Alawites are being kicked out of their jobs and are being replaced by uneducated people.

Most Alawites have fled from their houses in the cities and the villages on the coast. My brothers and sisters fled to a remote village in the mountains to keep themselves safe, but they are struggling to stay alive there. They are facing hunger now because of running out of food and other supplies, as well as money. One of my sisters, whose home is on the outskirts of the city, had her home burned by HTS. When the militia come to Alawite homes to kill them, if the home is empty, they rob the house and then set it on fire.

Yusef is now in one country and his wife and children in another. He is looking for a job so that he will be able to bring them to him. At the same time, he is looking for a country in which he can find asylum. He is filled with dread and worry over his siblings and the rest of his extended family.

The only thing I can do to help is to write about him and his community and raise awareness about their plight. In my next article, I will discuss who the Alawites are, their religion, characteristics of their community, and why they are being hunted down by the new Syrian regime. This is not a monolithic community and not necessarily what you might expect.

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