Alawite women targeted in post-Assad chaos
Shafaq News - Damascus
The aftermath of Bashar al-Assad's ousting has unleashed a new wave of violence in Syria—this time targeting women of his own sect.
Reuters reported that at least 33 Alawite women and girls, ages 16 to 39, have gone missing in 2025 alone, amid the unraveling security situation in al-Assad's coastal strongholds.
"Don't wait for her," a chilling voice told the family of 29-year-old Abeer Suleiman, who vanished on May 21 in Safita. Days later, her family received WhatsApp calls demanding $15,000 for her release, warning she would be killed or trafficked if the ransom wasn't paid. Suleiman later managed to say, 'I am not in Syria… all the accents around me are strange,' in a recorded call traced to an Iraqi number.
This is not an isolated case. These abductions, which exclusively target Alawite women, coincide with escalating reprisals against the community after al-Assad's fall in December. Armed factions aligned with the transitional government have reportedly killed hundreds of Alawites in the coastal regions since March.
Despite widespread online pleas from victims' families, no comparable patterns of disappearances have been reported among other sects. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria is now formally investigating the wave of abductions.
The rising trend has spotlighted the vulnerability of minority communities during regime transitions and raised urgent questions about state accountability, regional trafficking networks, and sectarian vengeance.
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