Syria: How do survivors of Alawite mass killings cope?

DW (English)

Months after the deadly March 2025 violence in Syria's coastal town of Baniyas, survivors are still grappling with grief and trauma. DW meets Maya Nasser, who lost her father and uncle during the killings.

Transcript

00:00In the narrow streets of the Al-Qusur neighborhood, grief hangs in the air.

00:06Maya Nasser lost both her father and uncle during mass killings carried out when pro-government fighters attacked the area.

00:16Beneath her family's apartment, she shows me the spot where she says they were shot dead.

00:23She's planted a bush there in their memory.

00:25These are the marks of the bullets that they fired while shouting at us to get down.

00:34Look here and there.

00:37I knew that they had killed my father, yet I still ran down the stairs to check on him, and I found both my father and my uncle right here.

00:46I cried and screamed, and I don't remember what else I did.

00:51That is what happened.

00:55For months afterwards, Maya says she couldn't leave her room.

01:00She describes feeling trapped by shock and an inability to grieve.

01:06But today, she volunteers with a local initiative known as YAMI,

01:11a grassroots effort founded by community members to support the children of those who were killed.

01:17We're preparing games and activities for the children here, and we'll give out these presents.

01:26YAMI, which also means mother in Arabic, carries the initials of Yusuf, Marah, and Yorub, three young Al-Awai graduates from the neighborhood.

01:38They were preparing for medical school before they were killed in March.

01:42YAMI made me feel alive again, and it was the reason I was able to leave the house once more.

01:51It helped me reflect on how to be present and offer support to others, especially at a time when I felt extremely vulnerable.

02:00Two of her friends, whose fathers were also killed that day, volunteer with Maya.

02:10Despite the new meaning she's found in the work, she says she has little faith left in the country or the new government.

02:17I wanted to leave long ago.

02:22I stayed only to be with my father. I was very attached to him.

02:28He kept urging me to go, telling me we had relatives in Germany who could host me.

02:35But I refused to leave on my own.

02:37Now it's different.

02:39I'll leave everything behind the first chance I get.

02:42Signs of what happened in this neighborhood on March 7 and 8 are still visible.

02:51Survivors say nearly every family in the area lost someone.

02:57Behind me, a newly built burial site for victims of the atrocities.

03:01Locals tell me nearly a thousand people were killed in the Al-Qusur neighborhood alone.

03:06Most of them were laid to rest in this mass grave.

03:10Among them, Yusuf, Marah and Yorub.

03:18The volunteers at Yemmi are honoring those three young people and all their own dead

03:23by caring for the children who lost parents.

03:26As the community here still struggles to grasp the scale of what was done to them,

03:33some, like Maya, focus on the small things they can do.

03:37They sound like only a thousand people in the mundo and all their own.

03:38Thank you for joining us.

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