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.
From the mosque intersection to the al-Mazar neighborhood in al-Da’tour, Latakia, Kinan Ibrahim’s aunt walked alongside her neighbor and his fiancée’s mother. They were searching for Kinan and his friend, Turab Muhammad, who had been staying with him since Thursday, 6 March, 2025, and with whom all contact had been lost.
The road was strewn with bodies, piled along both sides of the neighborhood’s streets and alleys. The three women moved among them, searching for Kinan and Turab. Armed factions affiliated with the Interim Government, along with groups of civilians, had just left the area following clashes with what they called “remnants of the former regime.” After these remnants withdrew and the fighting ended, massacres were carried out against civilians in their homes. Burned-out cars lined the roads, screams and wails echoed through the neighborhood, and women, men, and children poured into the streets to search for the bodies of their loved ones—those taken from their homes and thrown, dead, into the open. I was searching for my nephew, Kinan Ibrahim. Searching and searching...
There was the body of Abeer Ibrahim, lying in front of the house of Umm Youssef al-Sheikh, an elderly woman nearly ninety years old. I saw her trying to pull in the body of her eldest son, Youssef, a respected teacher at Al-Da’tour School and a father of two. Most of his body was burned right there, in front of the house, after gunmen killed him for crying out, “There is no god but God,” as he watched his two brothers—Mohammed, a teacher, and Ahmed, a construction worker—being executed before his eyes.
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One of the gunmen said to him, “Do you know God?” before shooting him and setting his body on fire. It burned for hours. His elderly mother, weeping, tells a story to anyone who passes by: The wall, the tree, and the door of the house are all charred, and the smell is indescribable. I want to find my nephew!
Kinan worked as a taxi driver, and his companion, Turab Muhammad, played the organ. He lived with his mother, sister, and little brother, who weren’t home that fateful day. Turab’s mother also went out to look for Turab and Kinan.
I haven’t seen my nephew since Thursday, when he decided to leave our nearby house and join his friend, so as not to be left alone amid the fear and anticipation that gripped the neighborhood. I begged him and his mother not to leave and to stay at home, but he insisted. “I wouldn’t leave my friend alone,” he told his mother. After he left on Thursday afternoon for Al-Da’tour, a group of masked gunmen stormed my brother’s house. They took our cell phones and our money. But they didn’t kill any of us, so I told myself, “Kinan and Turab will be safe, as long as they haven’t committed any crime in their lives.” But we never found either of them in Turab’s house! We saw the woolen blankets they had been covering themselves with on the sofas. It seemed they had been taken from the house as soon as they woke up—or that they were still asleep when the gunmen stormed in.
The bodies of university professor Talal Qassoum and his brother Muhannad Qassoum lay outside their door, shot in the head. Their wives were wailing over the bodies, their children beside them. Professor Talal’s wife was sobbing as she held his body: “By God, they didn’t let us get near you. They took them from the house and killed them. They told us that if we approached the bodies or photographed them, they would kill us and throw us next to them.”
But where were Kinan and Turab?
I met the mother of the Atwani children. She too was wailing in front of the bodies of her sons: Ali, 28; Ghefar, 18, a high school student; and Jaafar, 25. She was sobbing as she told the people around her how the three had been taken from the house, and how she had watched them from the balcony as they were killed together in the neighborhood. They asked Ghefar to kneel, but he refused—he saw his mother watching him. He refused to kneel, so they shot him in the leg and he knelt. Then they shot him again in the head, killing him instantly. They then killed his two brothers beside him, also with bullets to the head.
There was the body of Abeer Ibrahim, lying in front of the house of Umm Youssef al-Sheikh, an elderly woman nearly ninety years old. I saw her trying to pull in the body of her eldest son, Youssef, a respected teacher at Al-Da’tour School and a father of two. Most of his body was burned right there, in front of the house, after gunmen killed him for crying out, “There is no god but God,” as he watched his two brothers—Mohammed, a teacher, and Ahmed, a construction worker—being executed before his eyes.
Ali Atwani’s mother looked as if she had gone mad as she covered her head with dirt.
I saw many dead people, most of whom I knew—civilians with no connection to weapons or war. Everything around me was blurry: the smell of death, the wailing, the corpses, the stench of burning.
Then I saw Kinan from afar—my beloved nephew—in a dusty clearing hidden between two houses. I first noticed blood trickling from under the door of a small room that opened onto the courtyard. Later, they told me that a young man had been found dead there. I only saw Kinan’s body lying face down, but I recognized him. How could I not know him? Next to him lay the body of his friend, Turab. I couldn’t get any closer. The last thing I saw was the remains of his brain on the opposite wall, his eye out of its socket, and his jaw dislocated. How was I going to tell his mother all this?
Kinan, my beloved, had been killed the day before by a bullet to the head. Turab was killed by a bullet that shattered his forearm, followed by another to the head. The family wrapped Kinan’s body in a blanket and carried him, along with the other victims, to Da’tour. They carried them, also wrapped in blankets, to be buried in a mass grave—an empty plot of land between Da’tour and Baksa, which the landowner had given the residents to bury their dead.
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Kinan was killed for no reason. He was buried without a shroud, without a coffin—leaving me only with the image of his disfigured face, which will haunt me until I die.
In another place, in another city, at the same time—in the Qusour neighborhood of Baniyas—Umm Youssef, Susan Mohi Noman, 48 years old, was living through another catastrophe.
Since the gunfire began to intensify on Thursday, 6 March, 2025, and they heard about the curfew in the city, the family had remained inside their home. She, her husband Malik Mahmoud Sharif, 49, a civil engineer and director of antiquities in Baniyas; her son Youssef Malik Sharif, 18, an outstanding student in the preparatory year of medical school; and her second son, Hadi Malik Sharif, also an excellent student in his final year at the Petroleum High School—all had just finished their suhoor meal in preparation for fasting the next day. After the dawn call to prayer, the mosques of the city began to broadcast: “Come to Jihad.”
At first, I didn’t understand what that call meant. But by Friday morning, just a few hours later, we awoke to the sounds of shelling nearby. Groups of men entered the neighborhood, shouting and cursing.
Since our house is near the Qusour roundabout, I saw them setting fire to cars, shops, and restaurants. Around 1:00 PM, they began pounding on our door with their boots and rifles. From outside, we heard them shouting: “Open the door, you Alawite pigs!”
Two masked gunmen pointed their weapons at Abu Youssef the moment he opened the door.
The first question they asked: Are you Alawites?
—Yes, we are.
—Bring your IDs and cell phones.
One of them led me into the interior room at gunpoint and said: "Give me everything you have—money and gold."
I swore to him that I had neither.
My hope was renewed. But I couldn’t have imagined that the bodies of my husband and two sons had been lying above me on the roof since the day before—alongside our downstairs neighbor, Iskandar Haidar, and his son Murad, who miraculously survived the bullets. No one told me that my loved ones had been killed. Everyone in the neighborhood knew—except me!
He searched the safe and found a small sum of money—savings Hadi had put away from his part-time job at a supermarket to pay for his exam lessons. He took the money. Then he said: "Stay here. If you step into the living room, I’ll kill them in front of you."
—By God, we didn’t do anything!
—You are infidels... you…
—We are not infidels! We fast, we pray, we fear God. Bring me the Holy Quran, and I will swear to you.
—You killed us Sunnis—and we will kill you just as you killed us.
For a moment, I felt he was repeating the sentence to convince himself, because my Quran was in front of him on the table, and a piece of paper Youssef had written in Thuluth script—“The Holy Quran”—was hanging on the wall.
—Son, we are civilians. We didn’t kill you, and we have nothing to do with any of this. Mistakes happened over time, and we’re not the ones who should pay the price. Go hold those who killed you accountable—and kill them!
At that moment, a new gunman appeared at the door of the house. He wasn’t masked. I saw his eyes—eyes I will never forget. He shouted: “Come on, bring them back!”
They took my husband and my two sons with them.
Testimonies of Survivors of the Coast Massacre (5).. I will delete all messages as soon as they are sent
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At the time, I had no doubt they would be brought back. I told myself they’ll take them for interrogation and immediately bring them home. Who could kill two beautiful young men like my sons? Two outstanding students who knew nothing but books? Youssef had a chemistry exam the very next day—Saturday.
I waited for them at home, pacing in circles like a madwoman, praying to God as I heard the voices of men and the sound of footsteps on the stairs and on the rooftop above me. How could I be reassured about Youssef and Hadi when they had taken my cell phones?
Alone, afraid, and paralyzed with fear, I tried to console myself—repeating every minute: “The interrogation will end, and they’ll be back.”
On Saturday morning, another group of armed men came, pounding violently on the door.
As soon as I opened it, they asked: Are you Alawite? Then added: Where are the men?
—I’m begging you, you tell me—where are the men? You took them yesterday... where are they?!
He looked at me slyly, with a smile, and said: Under investigation. They’ll be back soon.
My hope was renewed. But I couldn’t have imagined that the bodies of my husband and two sons had been lying above me on the roof since the day before—alongside our downstairs neighbor, Iskandar Haidar, and his son Murad, who miraculously survived the bullets. No one told me that my loved ones had been killed. Everyone in the neighborhood knew—except me!
The women of the neighborhood took me out with them on Saturday afternoon to seek shelter at the Baniyas refinery housing complex. That’s where my brother broke the news to me.
The fruits of my life are gone. People of light and knowledge were killed by ignorant and obscurantist men. I lost the entire world. Innocent people were unjustly killed at the hands of the infidels. Yes, they are the infidels—the ones who declared me an infidel because I’m an Alawite!
The Sharif family lost ten members that day.
The fruits of my life are gone. People of light and knowledge were killed by ignorant and obscurantist men. I lost the entire world. Innocent people were unjustly killed at the hands of the infidels. Yes, they are the infidels—the ones who declared me an infidel because I’m an Alawite!
You—the one who killed them—do you know God better than I do? Do you fast or pray more than I do? I raised my children to fear God and follow religion, and in the end, we are killed in the name of religion?!!
To this day, I cannot enter the house. It was once full of life, their laughter, their voices—and now, there’s nothing but the smell of death and emptiness. On Sunday, my brothers and neighbors carried the bodies down from the rooftop, with the help of the Red Crescent. They wouldn’t allow us to take them to be buried properly in the village. They placed them in a mass grave—alongside hundreds of others from the neighborhood.
I want to tell the whole world what happened to us. I want to raise my voice. I have nothing left to lose. I am dead—but alive.
