Family of Christians, excerpt:
"There Is No Future Left in Syria": A Conversation With a Family of Refugees
By Pieter Van Ostaeyen
https://www.bellingcat.com
Posted 2018-10-18 21:29 GMT
...
P: Could you tell me about March 2011, when the revolution started in Syria ?
F: The war changed everything… Islamists from all over the world came to Syria, they started killing everyone, they wanted to create an Islamic state. They came through Turkey, some through Jordan. They entered the villages and started killing everyone who wasn't Sunni; Christians, Alawites, Kurds, Druze, Shi'a. In one village, close to Idlib, they only killed Shi'a. They changed the demography of these places forever.
P: What were the first jihadist groups to enter your region ?
F: Nusra, Jabhat an-Nusra. They constantly changed names, Nusra, Faylaq ar-Rahman... Until ISIS came. All of the time it were the same people over and over again, they just changed names constantly. The Syrian Arab Army was fighting the rebels in the south, many soldiers died in these battles. There was no safety anymore, corruption was widespread. Children got abducted for money, young girls were kidnapped for forced marriages, some people were killed for no obvious reasons.
We, Christians, were a preferred target for jihadists, both for killing and for abducting. The Christian population was driven out of several Christian villages like Rabla, Qusay, Saddat, Qassab and others. These towns were repopulated with islamists.
Read more at: http://aina.org/news/20181018172957.htm
