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May 9, 2013

Syria’s Christians caught in the middle
By Patrick Tombola

Between the PKK, the FSA, and the regime, Christians left with few allies

RAS AL-AYN, Syria – Church Street was once a bustling meeting point where Christians of many denominations would gather in the afternoons, along with their Muslim and Kurdish school friends.

Since December of last year this multicultural street in Syria’s north-eastern border town of Ras al-Ayn has witnessed two successive battles, the first of which pitched the Free Syrian Army against Assad’s soldiers. Later, the same FSA fought Kurdish military forces.

“Life before the revolution began two years ago was very good, we were all at peace with Muslims, Chechens, and Armenians,” says George, a 58 year-old former engineer from the Christian community. “But now nobody is in charge; I’m afraid that anyone capable of holding a gun could threaten my family or me.”

Today the city is currently split between Kurdish- and FSA-controlled areas. Church Street, named after the three churches – Orthodox Armenian, Syriac, and Catholic Syrian – built here, lies right in the middle, representing at times a buffer area, and at others, a war zone.

Members of the minority Christian community that have not already fled the violence, sift daily through the rubble of their homes wondering what might come next.

“At night here it’s like a forest, the strong one eats the weak, so the weak one stays at home or flees to Turkey” says 18 year-old Jean, while helping his father throw burned furniture from their gutted apartment onto the street.

Assad propaganda, Jean says, tried to instill fear in the Christian community by depicting Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist fighting group with ties to al-Qaeda, as fanatics bent on murdering any non-Muslims. However, Jean admits, that since the group has arrived in Ras al-Ayn, they have not attacked anyone for religious reasons, so the community’s fears have somewhat diminished.

Women are much more open in sharing their fears. “I’m a Christian girl, my hope is game over, no more studying, no more future, we are doomed,” says Diana, a 24 year-old former education student at Aleppo University. Along with a group of girlfriends that stand wearily outside their family house, she shares her dreams for the future. “I want to go to Sweden where I can finally continue my studies without living in fear, every day that goes by I wonder whether it’ll be my last one,” she says.

Not all members of the Christian community have remained on the sidelines of the conflict. When civilians began taking up arms against Assad’s army, Ziad and Naayem, two brothers that use to work as electricians in Ras al-Ayn and are members of the Assyrian Catholic community, decided to join the Free Syrian Army. “At first the revolution was peaceful, we were all together. Then Bashar came with his army and his planes and everyone got scared,” Ziad says.

The brothers say that once the revolution turned violent, the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) deserted protesters and sided with the regime, while the FSA stood its ground. They believe this is what caused much of the hatred and distrust between the two factions. “The revolution belongs to the FSA and everyone that fights with them, whether they’re Arabs, Christians, or anything else,” they say. Since then they’ve been tasked with manning the border crossing between Ras al-Ayn and the neighboring Turkish city of Nusaybin, which has seen a recent surge in Syrian refugees escaping the increasing violence.

Members of the Christian community do indeed have good reason to fear the current breakdown in law and order. Christians cannot rely on any military structure to protect them, unlike Kurds who represent around 10% of the total Syrian population. This has meant they are easy targets for thugs trying to make quick money through kidnappings for ransom.

Recently Joseph was driving down a side street in the Christian neighborhood when a group of men stopped him, begging him to take them immediately to a pharmacy to buy medicine. Once in the vehicle they brandished weapons and forced him to drive three hours away in the countryside of Aleppo.

“They tried to confuse me with videos of dead people so I would beg my family to pay the ransom,” he says. “These armed gangs exploit the vacuum of power; the situation is very bad and unstable.”

A few weeks later he was kidnapped again and taken to Hasakeh, a city in eastern Syria. He was released shortly thereafter, but not before his family spent their last savings in an effort to get him home safe.

“We all have a father, son, uncle or relative that has been kidnapped at some point over the past eight months,” says Joseph’s 22 year-old son Elias.

He walks through a patio from where the bullet-ridden dome of his Church is clearly visible. After a series of narrow corridors next to burned out classrooms, Elias opens the door to what once the playground of his former high school. Little is left intact: the sidewall has been knocked down, solid floor has turned into rubble, and a large crater sits right in the middle of the old basketball court.

“Everyone says they are fighting for democracy, the FSA, the PKK, the regime, but from where I stand all I see is a destroyed playground,” he says as he kicks a school register with Hafez al-Assad’s face printed on its front cover.