SOHR exclusive | Lebanese Hezbollah spearheads demographic change in Homs
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in early 2011, villages and towns of Homs province saw significant demographic changes. The Syrian conflict has triggered exudes of the inhabitants of many villages and towns, who supported one of the war parties for sectarian and spatial motives.
The demarcation of the contested areas has begun since the Syrian Revolution started to shift from peaceful protests to the phase of formation of factional armed groups with the aim of toppling the Syrian regime, and earlier before the intervention of foreign militias and Islamist groups. Later, the intervention of foreign parties contributed to widening the gap between the Syrians, who had been already divided into supporters and opponents of the regime.
The beginning of systematic displacement in southern Homs countryside
Al-Qusayr area, south of Homs province, witnessed the first forcible displacement of people from areas and villages captured by the Lebanese Hezbollah. In May 2013, the Lebanese Hezbollah fought fiercely against opposition factions operating under the banner of “Al-Farouk Battalions.” With the defeat of “Al-Farouk Battalions,” Hezbollah imposed its systematic policy on the entire area, which coincided with exodus of thousands of civilians who fled the scourge of war and arbitrary arrests.
Omar Abd Al-Haq, a pseudonym for a displaced person from Al-Bajajiyah village in western Al-Qusayer countryside, said: “the Lebanese Hezbollah has turned Al-Qusayr city into military barracks and security headquarters which were deployed in eastern neighbourhoods, and it refused to grant the people wishing to return to their houses ‘permissions to return’ as a punishment for their anti-regime stances and their support for the Syrian Revolution.”
The displaced man noted that Hezbollah’s deliberate and systematic displacement of residents began shortly after Hezbollah took control of villages inhabited by Sunni and Shia citizens. In those villages, Hezbollah succeeded to force the Sunnis to displace to ensure the loyalty of the remaining inhabitants in its largest stronghold in Syria. According to the man, Hezbollah practiced this policy in the following villages:
- Al-Safsafiyah village, which had a population of only 1,000 Sunni and Shia people.
- Hawaik village, which is five kilometres away from the Lebanese border and had nearly 2,000 inhabitants.
- Orchards of Tel Ahmar, Dusser and Abluza town.
Abd Al-Haq added that Hezbollah also took control of the following predominantly-Sunni villages in Al-Qusayr countryside:
- Al-Sawadiyah, which is adjacent to Zita village, one of the largest strongholds of popular committees’ fighters that Hezbollah provided with weapons.
- Al-Samaqiyat, whose inhabitants rejected the presence of Hezbollah since the outbreak of the conflict in Al-Qusayr city.
- Akwam, which had been inhabited by 1,000 people.
- Al-Sakmaniyah, which had been inhabited by Al-Fawa’rah tribe. Most of Al-Fawa’rah tribesmen fled to Wadi Khalid area on Syria-Lebanon border for kinship grounds.
Speaking to SOHR, a civilian called “Abu Omar” who has been displaced to the Lebanese town of Arsal confirmed that the Lebanese Hezbollah changed the demography of Al-Qusayr city through inhabiting tens of families who had been displaced from Al-Fu’ah and Kafriya villages under the regional-Arab-sponsored agreement which covered four towns in Idlib countryside.
“Abu Omar” noted out that pro-Hezbollah charities in Al-Qusayr city rehabilitated the houses of indigenous inhabitants, who have been already displaced from the city, so that Hezbollah would enhance its popular base and make sure that the real owners of these houses would not return soon.
With the rampant drug business and plantation of hashish in the area’s fertile land, the return of indigenous inhabitants to that area, which provides a major source of income to the Lebanese Hezbollah away from the regime’s military and security operations, has become impossible almost completely.
Despite the blackout practiced by the Lebanese Hezbollah to cover up security violations practiced inside Al-Qusayr city, local sources confirm that Hezbollah continues preventing the return of displaced people; this contravenes the reports circulating by the Syrian regime’s media outlets. However, Hezbollah never allows anyone from assaulting or harassing Christian civilians inhabiting Rablah and Al-Dumaynah towns.
The demography of predominantly-Alawite villages in northern Homs was also changed by opposition rebel factions. In early 2013, Liwaa Al-Iman, Liwaa Talbiseh and Saif Al-Iskam Khattab Battalion took control of Al-Amriyah village in north-east Homs countryside following fierce battles with regime forces, which lasted for three days. Accordingly, the village’s inhabitants found themselves were forced to displace to neighbouring towns and villages, so that they could avoid killing and kidnapping by jihadists.
After rebels had taken control of Al-Amriyah village, they started to loot civilian properties under the pretext that they were “spoils of war.” Regime aircraft later started intensive strikes on the village to prevent the rebels from being holed up in it and advancing into over villages adjacent the regime’s engineering battalion, which was stationed on the outskirts of Al-Mashrafah city; this, in turn resulted in destroying the village’s infrastructure almost completely.
The town of “Al-Zara,” which is near villages in north Homs countryside, whose Alawite inhabitants were forced to displace, also experienced mass exodus, after jihadist factions operating under the banner of the “North Homs Countryside” operations room, which comprised Ahrar Al-Sham Movement, Liwa 313, Ajnad Homs, Homs Corps, and Ahl Al-Sunnah Wa Al-Jama’a Movement, stormed the town and committed a horrific massacre on May 12, 2016, when they killed a large number of women and children.
Christian citizens affected by battles in northern Homs
For its strategic location, “Um Sharshouh” village, which had been inhabited by nearly 3,000 Christian civilians, was turned into a battle field in mid 2013 when the village witnessed devastating clashes between opposition factions on one hand, and regime forces and their proxy militias on the other. It is worth noting that the village’s inhabitants had provided besieged towns and villages in north Homs countryside with food, medicines and infant formula.
“Um Sharshouh” village is located nearly three kilometres to the west of Homs-Hama highway, and it separated rebel-held areas from Jabourin village, which was one of the most areas whose inhabitants supported regime forces. The village, as well as Talbiseh and Al-Rastan, was also a human reservoir securing a backup for the military formations participating in oppressing protestors in different areas.
The violent battles forced civilians, mainly Christians, to displace to different areas in Homs and other Syrian provinces. Also, many Christians from the village left Syria.
When a Russian-sponsored political settlement deal was reached between rebel factions and regime forces in Homs countryside in mid 2018, a group of expatriate businessmen close to the village’s inhabitants started a project aimed at reconstructing the destroyed houses, along with rehabilitating a part of the village’s church. A small number of inhabitants of the village participated in several prayers held in the church, despite the destruction it had sustained as a part of the systematic bombardment on the entire village. Meanwhile, the village’s inhabitants started to frequent to their houses, attempting to reconstruct them.
With the lack of support by charities supposed to work on the reconstruction of the houses of “Um Sharshouh” village and the suspension of services which had provided by the Syrian Red Crescent to north Homs countryside, the village’s houses have left destroyed until now, despite the “timid” efforts by inhabitants to rehabilitate and reconstruct their houses.
The Turkmen accuses regime forces and proxy militias of “ethnic cleansing”
Speaking to SOHR, a lawyer known by his initials as B. H. accused regime forces and proxy militias of deliberate “ethnic cleansing” against the “Syrian-Turkmen people” who inhabited the villages and towns of Tasnin, Al-Sam’alil, Al-Mashrou’, Harb Nafsah, Talaf, Akrad Al-Dasiniyah, Al-Hisah and Burj Rifa’i in the northern and western countryside of Homs. The lawyer noted out that the people of those villages and towns were subjected to systematic displacement which coincided with allowing families of other communities to inhabit in those villages and towns and take over properties of the indigenous inhabitants.
The lawyer said that there were two reasons making the Syrian Turkmen the utmost losers of demographic changes in the areas which had risen up against Al-Assad’s regime. According to B. H., the first reason was the small number of Turkmen people in Homs countryside, while the second reason was manifested in the fact that there were no parties supporting their presence in the centre of Syria, especially since their villages are adjacent to villages inhabited by Alawite civilians whose stance opposed the Syrian Revolution.
The horrific massacre, which was committed by regime ground forces and aircraft in Burj Qa’i town in June 2016, triggered the first wave of forcible displacement the town’s inhabitants, where some fled to other towns and villages in the northern countryside of Homs, while some left for north Syria region, escaping the deliberate elimination.
Hezbollah, regime forces and their proxy militias oppress villages welcoming refugees
Inhabitants of the gathering of villages of Qeniyyah area in the south-western countryside of Homs have supported civilians who had been forced to displace from their villages around Al-Qusayr city, which has become a major stronghold of the Lebanese Hezbollah. Reliable SOHR sources from a village whose inhabitants have been forced to displace have confirmed that the inhabitants of the villages and towns of Aable, Al-Mubarekiyah, Buwaydah Al-Sharqiyah and Al-Andalos district secured houses to civilians who had been forced to displace from villages to the east of Al-Qusayr city.
On the contrary, the villages of Al-Mas’oudiyah, Al-Dumaynah Al-Gharbiyah, Al-Saloumiyah amd Al-Shoumariyah have struggled from strict security measures, as they are located near predominantly-Shia villages which supported Hezbollah and acted as a siege encircling all adjacent villages dominated by Hezbollah. Those villages came under heavy artillery fire by Hezbollah fighters stationed in the villages of the villages of Al-Dab’a, Kafr Musa, Al-Mas’oudiyah and Rehbat Qutaynah which encircle Al-Dab’a military airbase.
Similarly, the villages of Ish Al-Warwar and Kemam experienced the first wave of civilian mass exodus in early 2014.
The heavy bombardment was not the only reason forcing civilians in villages to the south of Qutaynah area to displace, as the strict siege imposed by National Defence Forces (NDF) in the north also spurred many to flee from these villages. At that time, NDF blocked roads leading to that region after imposing their control of the supply line in a 50-kilometre-long area stretching from Al-Naqir town to Al-Idikhar residences and Baba Amr neighbourhood running through Kafr’aya. In addition, security checkpoints were deployed along Homs-Damascus highway with the aim of preventing any possible attacks on Homs refinery which is adjacent to the highway.
Accordingly, indigenous inhabitants of the gathering of villages of Qeniyyah area, as well as the residents who had been displaced to that area from Al-Qusayr city and surrounding villages and towns, found themselves besieged between the “hammer” of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the “anvil” of regime forces and their proxy militias.
For nearly a decade after the outbreak of Syria war, and despite the removal of many military and security checkpoints and cement and soil barriers from the vicinity of Qeniyyah area, the new demographics in that area remained unchanged. However, some families individually left Qeniyyah area.