INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Syria has witnessed an alarming wave of kidnappings of young women from the Alawite community since December, when the former Al-Qaeda
affiliate Syria's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the government of President Bashar al-Assad.The Cradle reported on Wednesday that
evidence suggests that these women, primarily from the Alawite religious sect, have been abducted by armed militants affiliated with the new
Syrian government and taken to live as sex slaves in Idlib governorate, which is the traditional HTS stronghold.The report said the mass
kidnapping and enslavement of Alawite women is similar to the enslavement of the thousands of Yezidi women by Daesh during the 2014 genocide
in Sinjar, Iraq.Hiba Ezzedeen, a Syrian activist from Idlib, in a Facebook post described her encounter with a woman who was captured and
taken to the governorate as a sex slave during the massacre of Alawites in the country's coastal areas on March 7."During my last visit to
Idlib, I was at a place with my brother when I saw a man I knew with a woman I had never met before," Ezzedeen explained in the now-deleted
Facebook post."This man had been married multiple times before and is believed to currently have three wives
was draped haphazardly," she added.Ezzedeen learned that the woman was from the coastal areas where the March 7 massacres took place."This
man had brought her to the village and married her, with no further details available
No one knew what had happened to her or how she got there, and naturally, the young woman was too afraid to speak," Ezzedeen added.Ezzedeen
made further inquiries about the abduction of Alawite women from the coast."Unfortunately, many confirmed that this had indeed happened, and
Based on what friends said, accusations point to factions of the National Army and some foreign fighters, with varying motives," she
reported.Syria's new HTS-led forces have incorporated armed extremist groups, including factions of the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army
(SNA), into their ranks since coming to power in Damascus.Many SNA commanders and foreign extremists have been appointed to top positions in
the Syrian Ministry of Defense.Mostly former SNA and foreign fighter factions are believed to have carried out the 7 March
massacres.Militants went door to door in Alawite villages and neighborhoods, and executing all military-aged men they could find, and at
times killing women, children, and the elderly.Ezzedeen concluded her post by stating, "This is a serious issue that cannot be ignored
The government must immediately reveal the fate of these women and release them."Ezzedeen's courageous reporting exposed the fate of many
young women from minority communities who had mysteriously disappeared in recent months.The HTS-appointed governor of Idlib issued an order
culminating a swift offensive that had begun in the northwestern province of Aleppo just two weeks earlier and ultimately brought an end to
This article first appeared/also appeared in Tehran Times
