Thousands of kilometres away from her homeland, Ghada Marouf is watching, and waiting, for answers.
In just two days, Marouf said “about 70 or more” extended family members were killed in the Syrian port city of Tartus, as the country suffered its worst bloodshed since former president Bashar al-Assad was toppled from power.
From Sydney, she has been trying to communicate with family, and is “collapsing from crying”.
“My extended family, about 70 people or more, have passed away, and until now there are people we don’t know anything about — relatives, acquaintances, neighbours, friends,” she told SBS News in Arabic.
“We try to communicate with them on a daily basis, and we are collapsing from crying. Until now, we have not been able to communicate.”
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed, according to one monitoring group, in violence that has swept Syria’s coastal region since last Thursday.
The violence has pitted the Islamist-led government’s security forces against fighters from the Alawite minority, to which Assad belongs.
With every call from Syria, Marouf fears more bad news.
“The moment I heard my sister’s voice, she was screaming and sending me a voicemail saying, ‘sister, maybe you can hear my voice now, but we don’t know what will happen to us later.’ Her children were next to her, and screaming.”
How did the violence unfold?
The violence began to unfold last Thursday (local time) when authorities said their forces in the coastal region came under attack from fighters aligned with the ousted Assad regime.
The Sunni Islamist-led government poured reinforcements into the area to stamp out what it described as a well-planned and premeditated assault by remnants of the Assad government.
The area is heavily populated by Alawites — a minority sect with roots in Shia Islam, and the second-largest religious group in Syria after Sunni Muslims.
Centred in north-western Syria, they make up roughly 12 per cent the population.
The Assad-led state recruited heavily from the Alawite community for its army and security apparatus, which was notorious for its brutality during more than five decades of family rule.
This put many Alawites on the frontlines of the civil war that erupted out of protests against Assad’s rule in 2011.
Many Alawites say that they suffered like other Syrians under the rule of Assad and his father.
Reports entire families killed, UN says
By Friday afternoon, reports emerged that scores of civilians had been killed in sectarian reprisals in Alawite towns and villages.
As of Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based organisation, said 973 civilians were killed in reprisal attacks carried out by government forces or fighters aligned with them. That includes 545 in Latakia and 262 in Tartus.
It said 250 Alawite fighters affiliated with the former regime were killed along with 231 government security personnel, bringing the total fatalities since Thursday to 1,454.
The SOHR is one monitoring group. Another group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said on Tuesday that 803 people had been killed. Of those, the group said at least 211 civilians and 172 security, police and military forces were killed by “non-state armed groups” linked to the Assad regime.
Ghada Marouf has been trying to communicate with family in Syria. Credit: SBS News
At least 420 civilians and “disarmed fighters” — including 39 children, 49 women and 27 medical personnel — were killed by “armed forces participating in military operations”, including factions and affiliated groups.
The SNHR says it does not document the deaths of “non-state armed group members” during conflicts.
The United Nations human rights office has so far documented the killing of 111 civilians, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, but it expects the real toll will be significantly higher.
Thameen Al-Kheetan told a press briefing that initial reports indicated perpetrators, who have not been identified, were both members of armed groups supporting Syria’s interim authorities and those associated with the former regime.
“They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis, in Tartus, Latakia and Hama governorates — reportedly by unidentified armed individuals, members of armed groups allegedly supporting the caretaker authorities’ security forces, and by elements associated with the former government,” he said.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families — including women, children and individuals hors de combat — were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular.”
The spokesperson used a French term for those incapable of fighting.
‘I’ve lost 14 people’
Syrian-Australian Tima Alwaary feels time is running out to find her missing loved ones.
“I’ve lost 14 people all up now. Some of them are children,” she told SBS News.
In Latakia, she said her cousin Ibrahim was among them.
“Ibrahim was outside of his house looking for his sister. As he was looking for her, they approached him and they started yelling at him to run back into his house. As he was trying to go back in, they started shooting him.
“The first shot was in the leg. As he has run inside screaming, they’ve shot him again and again and again, until he fell to the floor and they just kept on shooting into him.”
How has the Syrian regime, and international leaders, responded?
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa led the most powerful Sunni Islamist group fighting Assad. Since the ousting of Assad, al-Sharaa has pledged to run Syria in an inclusive way.
In a speech on Sunday, he said remnants of the Assad government, supported by external parties, were seeking to create strife and drag Syria back into civil war, with the aim of dividing it.
He promised to form a fact-finding committee and said its findings would be made public, vowing to bring to account anyone involved “in the bloodshed of civilians” or mistreating them.
He has also announced the formation of a committee aimed at preserving civil peace.
Speaking with Reuters, al-Sharaa said mass killings of Alawites were a threat to his mission to unite the country, and promised to punish those responsible, including his own allies if necessary.
The United States, which imposes sanctions on Damascus, urged Syrian authorities to hold accountable the “radical Islamist terrorists” that had killed people in Syria and said it stood with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, allies of Damascus, both signalled their backing for the administration as violence was escalating last week. Riyadh condemned “crimes being undertaken by outlaw groups” in Syria and their targeting of security forces.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has forces on the ground in northwestern Syria, has urged calm and said unnamed foreign elements were partly to blame.
Iran, which backed Assad through the war, has warned that the violence in Syria could cause regional instability.
Australia’s Syrian Alawite community urges action
In Australia, the Syrian Alawite community is calling for immediate action.
“We ask the Australian government and, in fact, the Australian people, to take note of what’s happening and to take immediate action [in] whatever capacity possible,” said Fatima Ali from the Muslim Alawite Advocacy Group.
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Trade said the government is “deeply concerned” about the escalation of violence in Syria in recent days, including reported civilian casualties.
“Australia calls for restraint from all parties and for the protection of civilians in accordance with international law.”
— This story was produced in collaboration with SBS Arabic, with additional reporting from Reuters
