Syria’s Rocky Transition Brings New Waves of Displacement

When Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war ended last year with the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad, many Syrians rejoiced at the chance to finally return to the homes and lands they had abandoned.

The war had displaced more than half the country’s population, as millions fled to other countries and many more sought safer ground within their own borders.

But now, the country’s rocky transition to new leadership has brought fresh waves of displacement, driven by acts of revenge, sectarian violence, decades-old property disputes and Israeli occupation of land in southern Syria.

The biggest displacements were in the southern province of Sweida, where deadly clashes broke out in the summer. The fighting initially pitted the Druse, a religious minority that dominates Sweida, against their Bedouin neighbors.

When violence erupted in early July in Sweida’s provincial capital, Reem al-Hawaren, a Bedouin resident of a nearby village, said she watched fearfully for more than a week.Old tensions between the Druse and the Bedouins, who descend from nomadic tribes, soon spiraled into bloodshed.

The violence quickly drew in forces aligned with the government in Damascus and took on a more sectarian tone. The Bedouins, like Syria’s new leaders, are part of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority.

The Druse militias that control Sweida Province have defied government efforts to integrate them into the national military and bring the whole province under the authority of the country’s new leaders. That is part of a broader effort by the government to reunite the entire country after the fractures of the civil war, which carved Syria up into multiple zones of control.

As the clashes in Sweida’s provincial capital raged, Ms. al-Hawaren said that her own village, al-Shahba, about 10 miles away, was calm. Like Sweida, al-Shahba also had a mixed population of Druse and Bedouins.

Everything changed on the morning of July 17, when Druse gunmen climbed onto the roof of a building near her home and called out for all Bedouin residents to leave within the hour, according to Ms. al-Hawaren, 43, and her husband, Muhammad, 42.

She and her family fled to a relative’s home where they hunkered down in terror for three days, she said. Then, the Syrian Red Crescent evacuated her family members and hundreds of other Bedouins on buses.

They ended up outside the capital, Damascus, where they have been for months. Despite the dangers they faced during the violence, she said they are desperate to return home.

“On what basis did they force us to leave our homes?” Ms. al-Hawaren, a civil servant who works with the local water authority, said of the Druse gunmen. “It’s my home, my land. Of course I’m going to return.”

From the hotel on the outskirts of Damascus where she and her family are now sheltering, Ms. al-Hawaren said there were terrifying moments when Druse gunmen ordered her and her neighbors to leave their homes. Moments after, she said, they heard a spray of gunfire.

Only later did she find out that six of her family members, including her 85-year-old mother-in-law and 7-year-old niece, Taj, had been killed, she and her husband said.

The New York Times verified that government security forces had carried out at least one execution of a Druse civilian and documented four other executions of Druse civilians, some of them by men in military fatigues.

Other waves of violence like the one in Sweida, several driven by sectarian tensions, have forced tens of thousands of Syrians to leave their homes since the transition of power in December of last year. Disputes over land and property ownership also account for some of the displacement.

More than 12 million out of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million were displaced internally or externally during the civil war, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Since Mr. al-Assad’s ouster, at least 2.8 million of them have returned, according to the United Nations.

While some of these disputed lands were seized during the civil war, other property fights go back decades.

Many of the cases stem from the Assad regime’s practice of expropriating land from certain communities and giving it to members of other groups that were more favored, such as the Alawites — a religious minority that the Assad family belongs to.

Now, many Alawites feel vulnerable.

In late August, hundreds of Alawites fled the Damascus suburb of al-Soumariya after they were told by security forces that someone from the governor’s office would come to inspect property ownership deeds and a subsequent raid, according to local residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring group.

The day after the town was notified about the inspection of deeds, groups of armed men affiliated with the new government raided homes and briefly detained local residents, according to a local official and a resident, who requested anonymity because they feared retribution.

In the days that followed, the governor of Damascus Province, Maher Marwan Idlibi, told state media that what happened in al-Soumariya was the result of decades of illegal land seizures and corrupt real estate deals by the Assad regime.

Mr. Idilbi urged people to leave the matter to the relevant authorities who can adjudicate property ownership and cautioned residents not to take matters into their own hands “lest chaos arise,” according to state media.

One 32-year-old Alawite woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said she and other residents had prepared their property documents in case of inspections. They were told a government committee would come. Instead, they were surprised when the armed forces arrived.

Nearly two dozen officers dressed in military uniforms, some of them masked, came to her neighborhood. She said they broke through her door and dragged her out by her hair, hurling sectarian insults at her and her brothers.

The only reason she has not joined her neighbors in leaving is because she has no money and nowhere to go, she said.

The Interior and Information Ministries and Mr. Idlibi’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the allegations of violence and verbal abuse during the raid in al-Soumariya.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said earlier that the national military forces had nothing to do with the evictions. He said the forces involved were evicting people linked to the ousted regime’s military from buildings owned by the provincial government so the buildings could be refurbished and used to house members of the country’s new military.

In the southern province of Quneitra, near Israel’s border, Israeli forces invaded Syrian towns days after the regime was ousted last December.

“Israel’s military forces operating in Syria should not have a free hand to seize homes, demolish them, and drive families out,” said Hiba Zayadin, a senior Syria researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Local officials and residents said that at least dozens of families had been displaced as a result.

Israel has described the incursions as temporary measures to protect its own security.