DAMASCUS: Syrian Christians attended regular Sunday services for the first time since the dramatic overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad a week ago, in an early test of assurances by the new Islamist rulers that the rights of minorities will be protected.
As the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept to power last week, it sought to reassure Syria’s minority groups that their way of life would not be at risk.
Streets in the heavily Christian Damascus neighbourhood of Bab Touma filled with worshippers returning from church on Sunday morning but some remained jittery.
“We’re scared, we’re still scared,” said local resident Maha Barsa after attending Mass at the neighbourhood’s Greek Melkite Catholic church.
Barsa said she had barely left her home since HTS took over one week ago, though she said that nothing had happened to warrant her concern, adding: “Things are ambiguous.”
Syria is home to historic ethnic and religious minority communities including Christians, Armenians, Kurds and Shi’ite Muslims, who like many other Syrian Muslims had feared throughout their country’s 13-year civil war that any future Islamist rule would imperil their way of life.
In the coastal city of Latakia, long an Assad stronghold, Lina Akhras, a parish council secretary at the St George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, said on Sunday that Christians had been “comfortable” under his rule in terms of freedom of belief but that they just wanted to live in peace and harmony.
The Assad family belong to the minority Alawite faith, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
“(His fall) happened all of a sudden, we didn’t know what to expect... Thank God, we received a lot of assurances and we saw that members of the (HTS) committee reached out to our priest,” she told Reuters.
“God willing, we will return to our previous lives and live in our beautiful Syria,” Akhras added.
The protection of Syria’s minorities was a key concern on Saturday when top diplomats from Arab nations, Turkey, the United States and European Union met in Jordan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they backed an inclusive and representative government that would respect minority rights and not offer “a base for terrorist groups”.
Syrian students also returned to classrooms on Sunday after the new rulers ordered schools reopened in another potent sign of some normalcy.
The country’s new de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, faces a massive challenge to rebuild Syria after the civil war, in which hundreds of thousands were killed. Cities were bombed to ruins, the economy was gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps outside Syria.
Officials said most schools were opening around the country on Sunday, the first day of the working week. However some parents were not sending their children to class due to uncertainty over the situation.
Pupils waited cheerfully in the courtyard of a boys’ high school in Damascus on Sunday morning and applauded as the school secretary, Raed Nasser, hung the flag adopted by the new authorities.