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Despite Fear and Concern, Christians in Syria are Optimistic

 A demonstration in Damascus to protest the burning of the Christmas tree in Hama (Reuters)
 A demonstration in Damascus to protest the burning of the Christmas tree in Hama (Reuters)
TT
TT

Despite Fear and Concern, Christians in Syria are Optimistic

 A demonstration in Damascus to protest the burning of the Christmas tree in Hama (Reuters)
 A demonstration in Damascus to protest the burning of the Christmas tree in Hama (Reuters)

Syria’s Christians prepared on Tuesday to celebrate their first Christmas since the overthrow of Bashar Assad amid fear and concern, particularly after armed men burnt a Christmas tree.
Demonstrators, including Christians and Muslims, took to the streets in Damascus and other locations in Syria after a Christmas tree was set on fire in the city of al-Suqaylabiyah, in the countryside of the west of Hama.
In Damascus, Father Andrew Bahi expressed concern about how Christians will be treated in Syria after Assad's ouster.
“We have the right to be afraid. Over the years, the [Christian-dominated] neighborhoods of eastern Damascus have been hit by hundreds of shells and we endured in our homes, but now the atmosphere remains ambiguous. There is a conflict and contradiction between words and actions,” Bahi told dpa.
“The statements by the new leadership in Damascus are reassuring and they stressed respect for all sects and religions, but some actions and slogans are a source of concern for us, and the coming days will test that,” added Bahi.
Meanwhile, Tony Matanius, a Christian man from Bab Touma, in eastern Damascus, who works at a grocery store, said that the opposition who seized the capital “did not do anything that would offend or harm us, but everyone is cautious.”
“We did not decorate the shops and homes as we are used to, though no one stopped us, but things we have heard and seen published on some social media sites are scaring us,” he added.
Matanius is optimistic about change after enduring conflict in the country for 13 years. He said he will continue monitoring statements by the new leadership and hope "They are translated into actions, not just words.”
Rana Medani, a civil employee, believes that the injustices Syrians faced during Assad's rule harmed people of all faiths.
“Personally, I am optimistic about the new leadership. I do not care if the ruler is Muslim or Christian. I care that it is someone who wants the best for the people and serves the people,” she added.
Medani said most of her colleagues are opposed to Bashar Assad's regime, which has humiliated and starved people.
“They oppose the corruption and patronage of the former regime officials,” she said.
On Tuesday, demonstrators took to the streets in Damascus and other regions in Syria after the arson of a Christmas tree in the city of al-Suqaylabiyah.
People chanted slogans against sectarian strife that seeks to destabilize society, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
“Everyone chanted demanding the protection of Christians in Syria,” said Samer Elias, who joined the protests in Damascus on Monday evening.
A security source in Hama province, where al-Suqaylabiyah is located, told dpa that two people burnt the tree and one of them was arrested.

 

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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
TT
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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

A Syrian family that survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near the country’s capital, Damascus, says the ordeal they experienced haunts them to this day.

The Aug. 21, 2013 attack targeted several Damascus suburbs, including Zamalka, where the Arbeeni family lives. Government forces of then-President Bashar Assad were blamed for the attack.

The Arbeenis remember how they locked themselves inside a windowless room in their home for hours, escaping the fate of dozens of their neighbors who perished in what was one of the deadliest moments of Syria’s civil war.

The gas that was used — sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent — can kill in minutes.

The Syrian government denied it was behind the attack and blamed opposition fighters, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be Washington’s “red line.”

“It was a horrifying night,” Hussein Arbeeni, 41, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The surface-to-surface missiles fell close to his family’s home without exploding, instead leaking the poisonous gas. Shortly after that, he says the family members had difficulties breathing, their eyes started to ache and their hearts beat faster and faster.

Hassan Arbeeni, 42, shows a crater where a surface-to-surface missile loaded with sarin struck, during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

Arbeeni, his parents, his siblings and their families, as well as a neighbor — 23 people in all — rushed into the only room in their home without windows and closed the door.

He says he taped all around the door, soaked some clothes in water and rolled them up under the door to prevent the gas from coming in. “I even taped the keyhole,” he said.

A few months earlier, Arbeeni said, the local first responders of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, had instructed residents in the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus what to do in case of a chemical attack.

He remembers them saying they should cover their nose and mouth with a cloth soaked in water with white vinegar, and breathe through that.

They huddled for three hours inside the room — time that seemed endless that night. Outside, many people were dying.

“It is all because of God and this locked room,” Arbeeni says of their survival.

Around daybreak, the White Helmets members rushed into their house, found the family inside the room on the ground floor and told them to leave the area immediately.

They ran into the street and saw dead bodies lying all around. A passing truck took the family on and gave them a ride. Their neighbor, who had fainted from the shock of the horrific scene, was taken away by paramedics.

“I was scared to look,” said Arbeeni’s mother, Khadija Dabbas, 66.

The family stayed for a few weeks some miles away from Zamalka but then came back.

Despite Obama's threat, in the end, Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Russia-backed Assad to give up his chemical weapons’ stockpile.

But Assad's government was widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again — including a 2018 chlorine gas attack over Douma, another Damascus suburb, that killed 43 people.

Today, Arbeeni — remembering all the neighbors, friends and townspeople who perished — says he wants the “harshest punishment” for those behind the attack in Zamalka.

“All those children and innocent people who were killed should get justice,” he said, looking at his 12-year-old son, Laith, a baby at the time of the attack.

An aerial view shows a mass grave where are buried those who were killed by the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

The new authorities in Syria are led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, which late last month launched a stunning offensive from its northwestern stronghold that blitzed across large swaths of Syria and toppled Assad. They have vowed to bring to justice former Syrian government officials blamed for atrocities.

But times are still unsettled — a few short weeks after Assad's ouster, no one knows what Syria's future will look like.

“The overthrow of the Assad government creates the possibility of justice for thousands of victims of atrocities, including those killed by chemical and other banned weapons,” says Adam Coogle, deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

“But justice will only happen if the new authorities prioritize it and urgently act to preserve evidence,” Coogle added. He urged for immediate access for UN agencies and international experts who would create a comprehensive plan to ensure that Syrians can seek justice and accountability.

On Wednesday, about a dozen people visited the Martyrs Cemetery in Zamalka and the graves of people from the area killed during Syria's nearly 14-year war.

Arbeeni's brother, Hassan, pointed to part of the cemetery that holds a mass grave. There are no names of the dead there, only a sign in Arabic that reads: “August 2013.”

“The martyrs of the chemical attack are here,” Hassan said, and recited a Muslim prayer for the dead.