Two Tales of Displaced Minorities from Rural Damascus

Some families that fled their homes in rural Damascus during the armed opposition’s control from 2012 to 2018 – due to concerns about their sectarian affiliations or political leanings – have still not returned despite the regime forces regaining control of their areas. Their decision to not return is due to various reasons:  the lack of services, their inability to repair their damaged houses, or a loss of sense of security.

Here are two accounts of two families from Rural Damascus that remain displaced.

Mona and Adnan, a couple from Ismaili origins, fled in 2011 their home in Douma, in the Rural Damascus governorate, and have not returned to this day. Mona and Adnan, through their work in public sector institutions about two decades ago, managed to buy a small house in a licensed building and a zoned area in Douma. In that house, they had their children and created memories. During the decade they lived there, the couple developed strong ties with the place, their neighbours and the local community.

However, after the 2011 revolution, friends and acquaintances began expressing concern for Mona and Adnan’s family if the situation deteriorated, hinting that there might be more danger for them than others since they were strangers to the city and not Sunni Muslims. The same sentiment was echoed by shop owners and the vegetable vendor, who all agreed that they should leave Douma as soon as possible. The family was not entirely convinced by these warnings, especially since they had no other place to go. However, the escalation of brutal violence by regime forces against the protests prompted some armed opposition groups to target military and security personnel and officers residing in the city, mostly from other governorates. After that, all non-indigenous residents of the city became suspects. In 2012, a teenager threw a stone that broke their house’s window and shouted at them to “get out of here.”

At that moment, the family realised that their time in Douma was coming to an end. They moved to a rented house in the neighbouring suburb, hoping to return once things calmed down. However, the family still resides in the suburb today.

Recently, Mona and Adnan visited Douma and checked on their house, which hadn’t changed much despite the years of war. But the entire area was turned upside down and was hardly recognisable. Some neighbours had been killed in the conflict, while others had fled to opposition-controlled areas in the north. The area was devastated and lacked services. Additionally, Mona and Adnan’s children had grown up in Douma, where they had made friends, attended schools, and built new lives. Thus, returning to Douma no longer seemed desirable for the family. The couple decided to make some repairs to the house and lease it out for the time being, while they wait for a suitable offer to sell it.

The second case relates to an Alawite family that moved to a town in Rural Damascus in 1970 when the father was appointed as a policeman in the town. The family remained in the town after the father retired, bought a car, and worked as a driver on the Beirut-Damascus route. The family bought land, established a farm, and built a large house.

All the children were educated in the town’s schools, and with significant support from their Baathist father, they showed great enthusiasm for the ruling party. They joined the Youth and Student Union before finding jobs in state institutions. Many residents of the town viewed the family as representatives of the regime in the area and often approached the retired policeman to intercede on their behalf with government and official agencies on various service and security issues. This advantage quickly turned into a problem for the family after the 2011 revolution. From the locals’ perspective, this family, along with other Alawite families in the town, were loyalists benefiting from the regime and needed to leave.

The family members quickly sensed the shift in public sentiment against them, and as more townspeople were killed by regime forces, the previous respect vanished and hostility grew. Riham, the retired policeman’s daughter who worked at the municipality, became terrified after one of her colleagues was killed, accused of collaborating with security forces. One of the town’s women told Riham that the presence of Alawites in the town was a “disaster.”

As the armed opposition presence began to appear openly in the town, the family decided to split up; the men would stay on the farm while the women went to live with relatives in Damascus. The men received weapons from regime forces and fortified themselves on the farm. The opposition factions saw this as a hostile act, besieged them, and armed clashes ensued before the men managed to withdraw and leave the town. The opposition seized the farm and made it one of their bases. In 2018, the opposition withdrew from rural Damascus, but the retired policeman’s family has not returned. The family believes that too much blood has been shed during the war, and it would not be wise to return after losing their connection to the place. They are seriously considering selling the farm but are waiting for a good offer.