In collaboration with SyriaUntold, Daraj is currently publishing a series of testimonies from survivors of the Coast massacre, as documented and recorded by Syrian writer Rosa Yassin Hassan.
A day before the massacre, I never once imagined that something like this could happen. Not even in my worst nightmares did I foresee that on my own street alone, I would witness more than 32 bodies piled up at the entrances of buildings, homes, and rooftops—or that I would have to step over the bodies of my neighbors, friends, and acquaintances just to cross!
I try to carry my body so they can't feel my weight. I wish I could pass over them like a cloud, like a bird gently brushing them with its wings. The Al-Qusour neighborhood, where I live in Baniyas, is a large and upscale area, home to a majority of Alawites and Christians. After 2011, displaced people from war-torn areas like Aleppo and Idlib came here to live among us, and we coexisted peacefully.
Not even in my worst nightmares did I foresee that on my own street alone, I would witness more than 32 bodies piled up at the entrances of buildings, homes, and rooftops—or that I would have to step over the bodies of my neighbors, friends, and acquaintances just to cross!
I had seen videos of armed groups humiliating Alawites in different areas, forcing them to howl while hurling the most obscene insults at them. I had read on Facebook about tensions in the city of Jableh, where members of General Security were reportedly killed by remnants of the Assad regime, with threats of retaliation circulating. But our city was safe. It had always been safe—or so I believed. For the three months since the fall of the former regime, nothing had happened here. Members of General Security, dressed in their black uniforms, remained stationed at a detachment near the neighborhood. There had never been any clashes, conflicts, or even inspection campaigns.
But what happened sent dozens of conflicting questions racing through my mind. Why?
I am Samer (a pseudonym), a 31-year-old lawyer. For the past ten years, I have been involved in relief and humanitarian work, dedicating my efforts to displacement camps for my people from Aleppo, Idlib, and other war-torn areas in Syria. But none of that mattered—none of it saved me or the dozens of victims from the Qusour neighborhood. It all began on Thursday 6 March 2025. My mother was preparing the Ramadan iftar meal around 6pm when the distant sound of gunfire began creeping closer, growing more intense. Fear—the kind that grips your chest so tightly you can’t breathe—settled in as the thunder of shells drew nearer, their echoes shaking the night. We didn’t know what was happening. But even then, I clung to a fragile hope, convincing myself that we might somehow be spared.
The Syrian Coast After the Fall of the Syrian Regime
10 January 2025
Friday morning, 7 March, arrived, shattering all my hopes with its horror. By 8am, the gunfire resumed—louder, closer, more relentless. Strange movements stirred in the neighborhood.
My neighbor, who lived on the same floor, was alone with her four children. My mother, father, and I went to check on her. We stayed huddled inside, gripped by terror, the children trembling with fear. With every shout outside, their panic deepened—tear-streaked faces, whispered prayers, eyes wide with dread. Fear gnawed at me from the inside out.
We didn’t dare step outside. On Facebook, we read that the army was searching for weapons. Open your doors and don’t be afraid, the posts said. I tried to reassure my family, my neighbor, and her children, but I was also trying to steady myself.
“Don’t be afraid. This is our army. They won’t harm us. They’ll search and leave. This is the country’s army.”
But as the words left my mouth, my own voice sounded strange to me. A thought crept in, cold and sharp: If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?
The sounds of heavy boots pounding up the stairs reached us. Doors were being forced open one after another—until they reached ours.
A thought crept in, cold and sharp: If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?
Six men stormed in, weapons drawn, military holsters strapped to their bodies. They wore desert camouflage uniforms, their faces masked except for their eyes. Why would the army be masked?
-Are you Alawite or Sunni?
-Alawite.
They asked me. Why would the state army ask about my sect?
They entered the house. One remained outside, silent. He had Asian eyes peeking out from beneath his mask. Is he Chechen? Uzbek? I asked myself.
One of them grabbed my phone and scrolled through my pictures. When he saw photos of me with my friends, males and females, another soldier scoffed, "Give him back the phone. It’s all debauchery and immorality." Meanwhile, another turned to a man they called Sheikh. "Sheikh, should we continue the search?"
Sheikh? Since when does an army have sheikhs?
-Do you go out with armed groups?
-No, I’m a lawyer. I work with humanitarian organizations!
-Damn you and your humanity.
He said those words before they left the house without harming us. But as soon as they were gone, I rushed to the kitchen, pulling back the curtain just enough to glimpse what was happening outside: Cars were burning in the street. My heartbeat pounded louder than the gunfire. The neighborhood café was in flames, and the kitchen window of the apartment across from ours had been shattered.
We huddled in the corridor, locking all the doors, staying silent until midnight. Then came the sounds of car windows shattering, followed by voices shouting "Allahu Akbar." That shout terrifies me. I don’t know why, but in moments like this, it only means one thing—death. But why would the army be shouting "Allahu Akbar"?
By 8am on Saturday, the terrifying sounds returned—the scary voices and the "Allahu Akbar" shouts, with the screams of women rising from every corner of the neighborhood. Screams from outside. Screams from inside. Children wailing in terror. We decided to go downstairs to our neighbors’ apartment on the lower floor—to be together.
Forced Returns from the Syrian Coast
08 December 2018
Our downstairs neighbor was from Idlib. I don’t know why that suddenly occurred to us—but maybe, somehow, we thought he could protect us.
Just as we reached his door, the masked gunmen returned to the building. When they realized he was from Idlib, they told him to step aside. Then, once again, they asked us if we were Alawites. After confirming, they took my neighbor’s car keys.
His wife was devastated, her voice breaking as she pleaded with them.
-We've been with the revolution all our lives! We've always stood against injustice! We're with you!
-Shut up!
One of the armed men snapped before he tossed the car keys back to her husband. "If another faction comes, don’t tell them we returned these," he warned. "They’ll kill you."
What other faction? Who else is coming? Why would they kill us? What have we done?
We retreated back to our apartment. The screams of women outside had grown louder, relentless. My thoughts blurred into the chaos—shouting, crying, gunfire. And then, suddenly, silence. A suffocating, unnatural silence, as if the entire neighborhood had been emptied.
I crept to the window and peered outside. Christian homes had been left untouched. The homes of displaced Sunnis were spared. Even the church priest’s house had not been entered. But his father, Jihad Bishara, was shot dead in the street while checking on his car. How did they know which homes belonged to whom? Were there informants among us? Was this massacre planned? A few days later, my friend from the building across the street would tell me how her father was kidnapped and never came back. He had tried to convince the gunmen that their neighbor’s house was empty. "Go to hell," they told him. "We know exactly who we’re here for."
I crept to the window and peered outside. Christian homes had been left untouched. The homes of displaced Sunnis were spared. Even the church priest’s house had not been entered. But his father, Jihad Bishara, was shot dead in the street while checking on his car. How did they know which homes belonged to whom? Were there informants among us? Was this massacre planned?
The house belonged to a former officer in the Assad army who had fled ten days earlier. Did he know what was coming?
Calls started coming in. Facebook pages were saying, "Whoever can reach the refinery area in Baniyas, it's safe and surrounded by General Security." For months, nothing had happened with General Security. We had believed they were disciplined. But where were they now? Why had they suddenly disappeared from the neighborhood? Weren’t they supposed to protect us? We decided to try and leave together, to make our way there.
Then, I saw a Red Crescent vehicle parked on the street. A flicker of relief washed over me—I had worked with them before. They would never enter an area unless it was safe for their volunteers. Around them, General Security officers stood guard. How did they suddenly reappear?
-We’re here to collect the bodies.
My friend from the Red Crescent’s emergency department told me. Why hasn’t the disaster management team arrived? We’ve been without electricity, water, or food for days! But I started to help them. The first body lay in the street, among a pile of corpses. I instinctively reached for my phone to take a picture. A security officer lunged at me, shouting, “I will kill you if I see you filming!” He snatched my phone, deleted the photo.
Fighting Corruption or Revenge for the Past?
06 March 2025
Then, I entered the first building. On the stairs lay my neighbor, drenched in blood. The smell of death was overwhelming. His navy shirt, still soaked in fresh blood, clung to his body. Inside his apartment, I found seven more bodies—from the Harfoush and Dunya families. I recognized them all. In the living room, a father and son, each executed with a bullet to the head. In the bedroom, three children and their mothers: Rula Harfoush and her son Karam Dannoura, Abboud Zioud’s daughter, and little Jad Dunya. I moved like a hypnotized man, stepping carefully over their bodies. I couldn’t breathe. Their faces flashed before my eyes—not lifeless, but as I remembered them, laughing on the seafront.
Oh God, why were they killed? And why wasn’t I? Buildings all around us had been looted, soaked in blood, filled with the dead. Except for mine. Was it our Idlibi neighbor who had kept us alive? Was that why our building was the only survivor amid the inferno?
-Do you know where the bodies are?
-No, but I know where the screams came from.
Corpses lay scattered around us, bodies covered in blood. On the roof of one building, several civilian men had been shot dead. Why were they killed on the roof? A Red Crescent volunteer explained, "They were being sniped by remnants of the regime, so they wanted to use the young men as human shields."
I didn’t understand. Why would they use them as human shields? Where do I live?
Then, I found the body of our neighbor, Ghassan Rabib, lying face down in a pool of blood. Next to him was his daughter Mira’s teddy bear, and beside it, the lifeless body of his wife, Faten Idris. Faten's face had been disfigured by a bullet to the head. It couldn’t be Faten! Not her!
Their three-year-old daughter, Mira, had escaped death. She had been sleeping in the inner room, and when neighbors found her, she was stunned, her wide eyes filled with horror. She didn’t even recognize me. Why was Ghassan, a simple pizza worker, killed? Why was Faten, a teacher, murdered? And what about Lama Abdullah and her husband, Mazen Jadid? Their 95-year-old mother still moaned weakly in her bed, while the bodies of her two sons lay in the living room, lifeless. Why were all these people killed? None of them had any connection to the former army, to the security forces, or to any form of militarism.
I walked through the streets, not fully aware of what surrounded me. It felt as though I were trapped in a nightmare—a nightmare that I would surely wake up from. The Red Crescent volunteers took the bodies they had collected to the commercial bank. Just before they left, my friend leaned close and whispered in my ear:
-They told us there were no more bodies, but there were still many houses they wouldn’t let us enter. They wouldn’t allow us in! Samer, watch out for the Red Bandits; they've set up checkpoints near the palaces.
His face was as pale as the surrounding death. What are these Red Bandits?
I couldn’t bear it any longer. I reached out to every organization I knew, desperate for help. The few that responded said they were powerless, that they wouldn’t be allowed to enter. There was no one coming to help us.
I couldn’t bear it any longer. I reached out to every organization I knew, desperate for help. The few that responded said they were powerless, that they wouldn’t be allowed to enter. There was no one coming to help us. We had no choice but to leave the neighborhood. My Sunni friends begged me to come to them, to find safety with them. But we left for a housing complex in the refinery area, where we stayed for three days—seven families crammed into a single house. I don’t remember much from those days. I was lost—lost in my thoughts, lost in the surroundings. People moved around me, their lips moved but I couldn’t hear, like I was surrounded by moving ghosts.
When the storm finally passed, we returned. The neighborhood was destroyed—walls riddled with bullets, shops reduced to ash, cars smashed and burned, bloodstains marking the ground and the entrances of buildings. The air was thick with the deadly stench of death, lingering in every corner. I don’t know how we will ever forget it.
I wasn't killed, but dozens of my friends, neighbors, and acquaintances were. I wasn't physically taken, but dozens of questions have killed me, and they continue to eat away at me. The images of people covered in blood haunt me, like a death that never ends. I can’t cry. I don’t have the luxury of breaking down. What was my fault for being born an Alawite? Is it a crime to be born into this? I’m not a remnant of the regime. I love joy, life, parties, and music. There were people I used to greet every morning, but now, to whom will I say good morning from now on?
