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By Nuri Kino
Independent Investigative Reporter
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Samya, a young Greek Orthodox mother in Latakia, Syria, stood frozen before her mirror, tears streaking the faint makeup she dared to wear. Her hands trembled as she wiped it away, because the mayor's new decree forbids makeup. As a woman she is no longer equal. She stepped outside humiliated, head bowed, knowing one wrong glance could cost her job, her dignity, her life. Is this the liberated Syria the U.S. and Europe want? A “free” country where women are not even allowed to wear makeup?
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In March 2025, around 60 bars and restaurants in Damascus’ Christian quarters (mainly the Old City) were temporarily shut down by authorities for lacking alcohol licenses. Shops were sealed with iron bars and red wax. Even though the closures were lifted after just one day due to public outcry, it sent a clear and worrying signal to Christians about growing restrictions on their cultural and social freedoms.
On June 22, 2025, Maryana, 19, was killed in the Saint Elias Church bombing in Damascus—25 were dead, dozens maimed in the deadliest attack on Christians there in over 160 years. At her funeral, her mother clutched her cold hand through the coffin window. Friends scattered sweets on the lid—a wedding tradition stolen forever. That moment haunts me: A girl's future buried; a community's hope torched.
In November 2025, I testified before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), sharing verified horrors from Syria. Before 2011, up to 1.5 million Christians called Syria home. Today, fewer than 300,000 cling to life. Aleppo's churches once echoed with 100,000 voices—now only 25,000 remain. Villages lie empty. Artin, an Armenian father of three, told me, "If everyone leaves, I'll go too. But not alone." Parents delay flights so children finish university, clinging to homes built by grandparents, to roots stretching hundreds of years.
The latest murder against Syria’s Christians was on January 31, 2026. The killing was caught on video. It went viral on Christian social media accounts. Other shop owners have been murdered, all while killers walk free.
Lawyer and human rights expert Riyad's voice cracked: "We survived imprisonment, kidnappings, ransoms, beheadings under Assad and terrorists. We dreamed Europe and America would save us. Now, 'free' Syria? We beg only for equal rights. This is cultural genocide, silent, watched by the world.”
Syria’s Indigenous Assyrian/Syriac families face double erasure—for faith, for blood, for demanding both ethnic and religious equal rights.
Curriculum changes in Syrian public schools since 2025 have raised alarms among minorities—changes that Christians, Yazidis, Shiites, Alawites and Druze see as fostering hostility toward their communities.
Malke, a teacher, broke it down for me: "How do we stay? We are Syria's roots, yet schools might poison minds against us. As parents, we must protect children first. But our homeland? How long can we bleed for it?"
In March 2025, massacres targeted Alawites along the coast (over 1,400 killed according to reports), were followed by attacks against Druze and Kurds in ongoing sectarian clashes.
In Suwayda, in July 2025, Pastor Khaled Mazher (leader of Good Shepherd Evangelical Church) was murdered along with his entire family, over 20 people, including parents, siblings and grandchildren, in what church sources described as a targeted massacre amid violence between Druze and Islamists. A girl who survived the attack told me about the horror: gunshots echoing through the house, screams of her relatives, hiding under lifeless bodies to survive the night.
“Alawite, Druze, Kurdish, Yezidi, and ancient Christian communities face targeted killings, abductions, enslavement, forced displacement, religious persecution, and systematic destruction of sacred sites,” warned Jens Kreinath, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Wichita State University, with nearly two decades of fieldwork on inter-religious practices in the Levant. He founded and directs IDHRV-ARMIL, which compiles verified reports of targeted violence against indigenous ethnic and religious minorities in post-Assad Syria. He has presented his findings to the U.N., U.S. Congress and the European Parliament.
As I told USCIRF last year, U.S. aid must be conditioned, with relief sanctioned on real benchmarks, via independent verification. Sacred sites in Syria need to be guarded before another church burns, while defenders of minority communities must be funded. A designated special envoy on the ground is necessary.
Europe must stop forcibly deporting asylum seekers back to Syria “because it’s safe for Christians.” My organization, ADFA, is advocating for cases in Sweden. Shabo fled ISIS in Hasakah, northeastern Syria. He, his wife and their 15-year-old triplets have lived in Sweden for over a decade. Their sons are Swedish citizens. The parents might face deportation.
A Syria without its indigenous Christians is a Syria without pluralism, without balance and without hope. They need to be safe.
Nuri Kino is an independent investigative multi-award-winning reporter and minority rights expert.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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