State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2015 - Syria

Fighting in Syria intensified throughout 2014, with at least 7.6 million Syrians internally displaced and another 3.7 million refugees by the end of the year. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 76,000 people had died during the year, bringing the death toll of the conflict so far to over 200,000. The conflict has been strongly urban in nature, focused particularly on cities such as Aleppo and Damascus, with civilians especially vulnerable as regime forces deliberately target schools, hospitals, mosques and other non-military targets. Both the government and armed opposition groups have also denied civilians in besieged areas access to food, water, electricity, medical care and other essential services. Women are at particular risk due to the increasing use of gender-based violence as a weapon of war in the conflict.

The brutal and destructive nature of the conflict in Syria has caused untold suffering for all civilians, majority and minority communities alike. At times, however, minorities including Alawis, Christians, Druze, Ismailis, Kurds, Turkmen, Twelver Shi'a and Yezidis have been targeted by opposition militias on the assumption, whether accurate or not, that they support the regime. Alawis are among the groups most in danger of violent persecution by armed opposition groups due to their perceived association with the Assad regime, although in general minority political allegiances are divided between support and opposition. Alawis and other Shi'a Muslims were exposed to several brutal attacks during the year. In February, rebel fighters attacked the village of Maan in Hama province, killing 40 Alawis. In May, an entire Alawi family was executed in Zanuba, Hama province, while a series of car bombings in Alawi areas of Homs between March and June led to high civilian casualties. Many Alawis worry for their future in Syria, fearing they will be reduced to second-class citizens if a Sunni-dominated regime takes power or forced to negotiate their minority status along with the rest of Syria's religious minorities. The Assad regime has been accused of attempting to manipulate minorities by encouraging fears of sectarian division.

Furthermore, as extremist groups such as Jabhat an-Nusrah and ISIS have risen in influence over the year, minorities have been targeted because of their faith. Since some of these communities are already small in number, there are fears that continued attacks could lead to their exodus from the country. Members of Syria's Yezidi minority, for instance, are at risk following ISIS's brutal campaign against community members in Iraq. ISIS has smuggled unknown numbers of abducted Yezidi women and girls from Sinjar into Syria, where they have been sold as commodities, enslaved, raped and forcibly married to ISIS fighters.

Among the many areas subjected to intense fighting over the year were several Christian-majority towns, where attacks led to the displacement of the civilian population and irreparable damage to historic archaeological and religious sites. In May, the Armenian Christian town of Kesseb was attacked and taken over by opposition fighters, causing approximately 2,500 Armenians to flee for their lives. The Assyrian Christian town of Ma'aloula, one of the few places in Syria where the Aramaic language is still spoken, switched hands between government and opposition forces four times between the end of 2013 and April 2014, when it was retaken by the government. According to the regime, many of the town's churches and monasteries were vandalized, destroyed or looted: some of the churches were found with extremist slogans scrawled on their walls and icons removed or defaced, although it is unclear who was responsible for these actions.

Armed groups have continued to target Christian religious leaders for abduction and assassination. Father Frans van der Lugt, a 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit priest, was shot and killed in his monastery in Homs in April by an unknown assailant. Van der Lugt had been living in Syria for several decades and was the founder of a community centre to help people with disabilities from all religions. Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the kidnapped Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Jesuit priest Father Paolo Dall-Oglio are still unknown. Thirteen nuns and three maids, who were kidnapped from Ma'aloula in December 2013, were released in March following negotiations between Jabhat an-Nusra, which was holding them captive, and Syrian, Lebanese and Qatari officials.

The Druze community, whose adherents follow a monotheistic religion with roots in Islam, has largely attempted to stay removed from the conflict but were nonetheless drawn into the fighting this year. In August, Druze fighters clashed with Bedouin Arabs backed by Jabhat an-Nusrah, leading to at least a dozen deaths, including those of three spiritual leaders.

As for Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority, long disenfranchised by Baa'thist rule, the conflict has provided an opportunity to carve out a sphere of autonomy. In January, Syrian Kurds established an Interim Transitional Administration in the cantons of Jazira, Kobane and Afrin. However, as fighting with Sunni Arab factions for control of territory is ongoing, Kurdish civilians continue to pay a high price. When ISIS entered the village of Tel Akhader in March, the group issued an ultimatum to the Kurdish residents to leave or be killed. In May, the group kidnapped nearly 200 Kurdish civilians from the village of Qabasin. The same month, they kidnapped 153 Kurdish schoolboys, held nearly all of them captive in Minbij for five months, and showed them violent videos while imbuing them with the group's ideology. Beginning in September 2014, ISIS besieged the Kurdish city of Kobane, cutting off food supplies, water and electricity from the city and causing over 200,000 people to flee.

The sharpening of sectarian identities, which continues to increase as the conflict progresses, represents a significant shift in Syria's social dynamics. For much of its recent history, Syria's various religious and ethnic minorities have to some extent been concentrated in different parts of the country. However, cities such as Damascus were places where people from all sects congregated. In this sense, cities often played a positive role in reducing barriers and enabling some interaction between different groups. However, urbanization also contributed to increasing social discontent. The years preceding the outbreak of protests were marked by large-scale population movements from the countryside into the cities, following some of the worst droughts and crop failures in recent history. The largely Sunni rural migrants settled down in sprawling, overcrowded neighbourhoods which grew out of the suburbs of Syria's major cities, increasing the strain on urban infrastructure and public resources such as water. Meanwhile, government-led, modified neoliberal policies created enormous wealth for the ruling elite, in stark contrast to the neglected countryside. After protests against the regime began in rural Dera'a in 2011, these resentments fed into the uprising.

The rising influence of extremist groups over the course of 2014, especially ISIS, has dramatically changed the urban landscape in cities under their control. The town of Al-Raqqa has become the informal capital of ISIS's self-declared caliphate. In February, ISIS released an edict giving the small number of Christians living in the town one of three choices: conversion to Islam, the payment of a tribute or the risk of death. Those under ISIS rule are subject to a host of restrictions on their religious practice, with prohibitions on church renovation, the display of crosses and other acts of public worship. ISIS also subjects the Muslim population of the town to a brutal regime of control, regularly carrying out public beheadings, stonings, crucifixions and amputations for transgressing the group's authority. In addition, militants have destroyed cultural and religious sites belonging to minorities, including the Shi'a mosque of Uwais Al-Qarni and tombs dating back to the 7th century in Al-Raqqa in May. The control of extremist groups over urban centres and districts has had particularly severe consequences for women, with restrictions on their dress and movement in areas under their control.

With continued waves of displacement, many Syrians face the challenge of adapting to new urban environments, both inside and outside of Syria. Outside the country, an estimated 70 per cent of Syrian refugees are based in urban areas. Only a small proportion of minorities have registered with UNHCR, with more than 90 per cent of refugees identifying as Sunni Muslims. However, fear of attacks from other groups or reprisals by the government on their return may be discouraging minority refugees from registering. Some receiving countries have made special arrangements to protect minorities, with Jordan and Turkey establishing separate procedures for Alawi and Turkmen refugees respectively. Towards the end of 2014, news also emerged of plans by the Canadian government to prioritize Syrian refugees from minorities for resettlement, on the basis that these groups experienced higher levels of persecution. The proposal was strongly criticized by rights groups, who argued that preferential selection would be discriminatory and could further inflame sectarian tensions within Syria.