A Heart-Wrenching Plea from Syria
During his lunch break on a bleak Friday afternoon, Dr. Nabeel Zahlout, a Syrian physician dedicated to the NHS in England, received a chilling message from his niece in Syria. Armed men had stormed their family home, abducting her father and two uncles—Zahlout’s three brothers, aged 52, 55, and 57. “We’re very scared,” she typed in Messenger. “They were shooting as they came down the stairs. We are trapped in the house, hearing gunfire both near and far.”
The events that unfolded over the weekend marked one of the most brutal episodes of violence in Syria since the darkest days of the civil war. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), approximately 1,000 individuals lost their lives in 30 “massacres” aimed at the Alawite religious minority along the country’s western coast during Friday and Saturday. Rami Abdulrahman, the head of SOHR, reported that this staggering death toll was among the highest since a chemical weapons attack attributed to Assad’s forces in 2013, which took the lives of 1,400 people in a suburb of Damascus.
The family of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who was ousted in December, belongs to the Alawite sect, which is predominantly found in Syria’s coastal regions, especially in Latakia and Tartus provinces. Security sources within Syria’s interim Islamist government revealed that over 300 of their members had died in coordinated ambushes and attacks by former military personnel loyal to Assad on Thursday. In retaliation, government forces initiated a crackdown on pro-Assad militants, but this swiftly devolved into a cycle of revenge killings, including the execution of numerous men within Syria’s Alawite heartlands.
Residents from Alawite villages and towns, particularly in Latakia and Tartus, reported gunmen firing at them in the streets, while their homes were looted and set ablaze. Dr. Zahlout, who relocated to the UK in 2018 and now resides in northern England, recounted his shock upon receiving his niece’s message. For 20 agonizing minutes, he felt paralyzed, unable to act or process the gravity of the situation. Eventually, he sought permission to leave work and rushed home to gather more information about the unfolding tragedy.
He learned that armed men had invaded his family’s home in the village of Sanober, located in the countryside of Latakia, seizing phones and valuables. “I discovered that 50 people had been killed in my village—mostly men, with only two women among the deceased,” Zahlout, 45, a devoted father of three daughters, shared with The i Paper. Initially, he held onto hope that his brothers might have been taken for questioning rather than killed, but despair set in as he heard reports of fatalities from nearly every one of the roughly 100 houses in the village. By Saturday morning, the grim reality was confirmed—his brothers had been murdered.
“Their bodies were left just outside our front door,” he recounted sorrowfully. “They were piled together and abandoned there.” The tragedy extended beyond his immediate family; Zahlout’s relatives in Syria—his mother, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews—were forced to bring the bodies inside their home on Saturday. “The entire village faced a similar fate—bodies littered the streets or lay inside houses,” he explained. “No one dares to go outside due to the threats and gunfire surrounding us.”
The government asserted that they had responded to the initial assaults from Assad’s forces, attributing the subsequent violence to “individual actions.” Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa called for a unified national response and announced an investigation committee to identify those responsible for the bloodshed.
In a statement, he declared, “We must maintain national unity and domestic peace; we can coexist. Rest assured about Syria, this country possesses the resilience necessary for survival… What is currently unfolding is part of the expected challenges we face.”
A resident of Qadmous, a town in Tartus, relayed to Reuters that locals had fled to nearby fields for safety, witnessing a convoy of fighters equipped with tanks, heavy weapons, and drones burning homes and vehicles along the main road near his town. “We cannot ascertain the total number of casualties yet, as people have not returned home and do not plan to for the next few days,” he said, choosing to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
For Zahlout and his family, the overwhelming feeling is one of abandonment. “They are being slaughtered, and the government merely claims uncertainty about the situation—promising to send someone,” he lamented. “It was a relentless 24 hours of gangs murdering innocent people, with no resistance.” Zahlout added that he had heard reports indicating that between 40 to 50 surrounding villages had suffered similar fates. In some areas, entire families were wiped out; in others, like his own, only the men were targeted. As he attempts to support his family from afar, Zahlout feels utterly powerless.
“I have no influence,” he expressed, his voice tinged with despair. “I’ve been in shock ever since. I feel an intense anger. At times, I just want to cry and hold my daughter close.”
