Syria, March 12, 2025
Photo: vimaorthodoxias.gr
Several thousands of Christians and Alawite Muslims have been brutally slaughtered by security forces in Syria, according to Greek Member of European Parliament Nikolas Farantouris who visited Damascus on March 8–9.
During his visit, he met with His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and officials from the regime that toppled the Assad government several months ago. Violence broke out last week as security forces began slaughtering hundreds and thousands of civilians in cities along the west coast.
“Reliable data indicate 7,000 Christians and Alawites slaughtered and unprecedented atrocities against civilians. Christian and other communities with a millennial presence in this region are at risk of extinction,” Farantouris said in a statement following his visit, reports Greek City Times.
“The new Islamic regime is leading Syria into an Islamic state and is pretending that it cannot control the paramilitaries and the gangs associated with them who attack innocent civilians,” he continued, adding that Patriarch John X made an appeal “to stop the bloodshed, while in our private meeting he pointed out the tragic shortages of food and medicine that Christians are facing.”
The MEP called on Greece and EU member states to act immediately to protect Christian and Muslim minorities in Syria.
Syrian Defense Ministry spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani said security forces had neutralized security threats and remnants of Assad loyalism, but it’s also been documented that women, children, and the elderly have been murdered.
Among those murdered was the father of an Antiochian Orthodox priest in the city of Baniyas.
Fr. Gregorios told ertnews.gr:
The first time when they searched our house in the morning, they didn’t attack us, but at night they stole my car and broke the window of my father’s car. Then my father went down to check his car and someone shot him in the head and killed him. Then they stole his car too.
My father’s body remained on the street and we couldn’t reach it because they closed the road and didn’t allow the ambulance to arrive to save people. After 4 hours with the help of a member of General Security, we managed to transfer my father’s body with a hearse.
An Orthodox Christian from Tartus told the same outlet under condition of anonymity:
It’s extremely dangerous. We fear that jihadists will enter our homes, as they did in Balmakeh, a Christian village near Tartus. We can’t move, as the borders are closed. The road to Damascus isn’t safe. Personally, I’m going to try to leave as soon as possible.
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