Terrified Druze Syrians speak out after deadly violence: ‘They just kill people everywhere'
More than 1,000 Druze, the country's third largest religious minority which makes up just about three percent of the population, and 25 Syrian Christians have been killed so far in the southern district of Sweida.
Safi, a Druze lawyer in Syria, described heinous violence, including the indiscriminate murders of children and elderly, while a Christian Syrian named Lama told The Post her father was shot to death while scavenging for food.
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'We believe they will continue to attack us – and the fear is growing,' Safi said, calling al-Sharaa's government 'a dictatorship…that is brutal to everyone.'
3 Food vendor Raif Rashev is Druze and survived the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas only to see his family subject to violence at home in Syria.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
'We can't trust them. This is not a government we can make a deal with,' he added.
'Right now, we are besieged by the Islamists who don't differentiate between Christians and Druze – they're attacking everyone,' said Lama, 30, a pharmacist who just gave birth to a son.
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Her father's bullet-riddled body was found by members of her church days after he'd gone out and failed to return, said Lama, who is now in hiding.
'There are no guarantees this is all over. With every ceasefire, they go back again with the missiles and snipers to attack peaceful people,' she said, adding civilians are scrambling for shelter as homes are targeted by drones.
3 Violence against religious minorities in southern Syrian has escalated in recent weeks.
Getty Images
A NYC chef from Syria who narrowly escaped with his life during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas says his homeland is now 'suffering a Druze October 7.'
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'My people are being abandoned. It's a massacre,' raged Raif Rashev, 41, who is Druze and said his 13-year-old cousin was killed.
'They just kill people everywhere – kids, women. It's chilling.'
The violence comes months after Islamist militia Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, ousted President Bashar al-Assad regime. HTS, which experts said evolved from Al Qaeda, is now the main power in Syria under new President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
3 Rashev's 13-year-old cousin, seen here with his own father. He was one of hundreds of victims of violence against religious minorities in Syria.
Obtained by the New York Post
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The violence came after President Trump lifted longstanding sanctions against Syria in late June, interpreted by al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda leader, as a 'greenlight from the world to do what he wants,' an intelligence source told The Post.
'He's powerful enough after the announcement of lifting the sanctions. He showed he can be the dictator he wants to be,' the source said.
The US State Department announced this week that Secretary of State Marco Rubio 'underscored the importance of protecting civilians' in Syria.
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