Lama, a woman in her forties who has lived in Somariya since her birth in 1984, didn’t know that the whole history of the neighborhood would affect her to that point. On 27 August 2025, a faction led by a person named Abu Hudhayfah, from Moadhamiya, attacked Somariya. "Most of my neighbors had left for their villages and cities for a religious celebration, so Somariya was almost empty that night”, she said sometimes angrily and sometimes fearfully. “I heard the sounds of doors being removed from afar, women screaming, children crying, faction members cursing, and sectarian insults against the people. I couldn't leave because I was alone and didn't have the courage to leave”. Back then, Lama called a friend of hers, who said that the armed factions had arrested her husband after beating him up inside his house, in front of her and the children. “They gave them 24 hours to leave the neighborhood without asking for any identification papers for their residence”.
The ghost of the March coastal massacres loomed over the scene, and residents expected them to be repeated in Somariya. Some buried and burned books of the esoteric Alawi religion out of fear the contents would leak, while others got rid of pictures of the sect's sheikhs, and graduates of military colleges hid their certificates and military work documents.
To Damascus residents, the name Somariya is associated with Hafez al-Assad’s brother, Rifaat al-Assad, and the Defence Brigades. Land originally owned by Moadhamiya families, west of Damascus, near the Mezzeh Military Airport also built on Moadhamiya lands during the French occupation, Somariya was later seized and expropriated by Rifaat and a powerful militia leader in the mid-1970s.
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Military housing for the officers of the Defence Brigades was built on this land, and the construction was overseen by Rifaat's son, Somar, after whom it was named. Some influential residents of these housing units later took control of the areas near their buildings and sold them to many working in the army, government, and those with poor economic conditions in the capital at low prices. Construction began in early 1981, in a legally dubious manner and with structural insufficiencies. The property contracts did not protect the buyers, often unaware of their rights or did not care about them in the first place, as their priority was to obtain sustainable shelter in the capital.
The people of Moadhamiya consider the loss of their lands as a deep wound that has touched every family. Louay was born and lived in Moadhamiyat al-Sham all his life. "Some families lost everything they owned as if they did not have an inch of land”, says the 40-year-old man with a master's degree in microbiology. His story is a sad narrative that is common across all the people of the area. “We lived and grew up talking about expropriation in Moadhamiya before the revolution. No one had the audacity to speak about the matter publicly because Air Force Intelligence controlled the residents of Somariya and the surrounding areas. Our people have always felt afraid of Somariya: after the outbreak of the revolution its residents praised Moadhamiya, but they were the stick that the regime raised in the face of us. We demanded from the first days the return of the stolen lands”.
Restoring rights or sectarian displacement
Somariya is divided into four sections. The first consists of military housing near the airport, the second a neighborhood called Al-Sina'a, which begins with shops or commercial kiosks with false roofs. These kiosks were demolished immediately after the fall of the regime by Moadhamiya municipal machinery to destroy points of sale that were famous for smuggled goods, tobacco, and alcohol. The third section includes a group of houses near the Somariya bus departure garage, while the fourth section is located on the Damascus-Beirut road and is the worst in terms of living conditions.
Lama describes the late August raid. "One of my relatives asked me to wear the hijab, but I did not. I saw some Alawi women wearing it. In the early hours of the morning, I opened the door of my house to the armed men. They did not ask me about my sectarian identity, I believe because my street is known for its Murshidi majority, and they left as soon as they learned that I lived alone. I breathed a sigh of relief and said to myself, ‘Not everything they do is bad’, although I could see the faction members spread out in the streets with their weapons and the pieces of furniture thrown out in the streets”. On 29 August, Lama was able to leave the neighborhood with her bag of clothes, and the security barrier, unmanned, allowed her to leave. “No one objected to me, and I saw many residents sitting in the streets in front of transport vehicles. I learned that the checkpoint required them to go out permanently with the furniture, the water tanks, and heaters”.
Raghad, one of Lama's neighbours, who belongs to the Murshidiyya sect and works at the health centre in the Somariya neighbourhood, recalls: "I had travelled to Homs for the holiday when we started receiving calls from our Alawi neighbours on 27 August, asking us to return home because our house was going to be searched. My husband contacted representatives of the sect and told me that the matter had been resolved for us, meaning they would not enter the homes of Murshidi people. We were unable to find out any more details, and the holiday was not like every other year; it was full of tension and fear. We were not happy to see our Alawi neighbours leave the neighbourhood, people with whom we had lived with and shared everything. We returned ten days later, after journalists, official television crews, and the Damascus governorate were allowed to enter”.
The story of Abu Abdulaziz, a man in his 60, shows the sectarian side of what happened. He is a Sunni from the Baba Amr neighbourhood in the city of Homs. "I lived in the Somariya neighbourhood for 30 years. I volunteered for the Syrian army with the rank of officer. After serving for several years, I moved to work for the Military Construction Authority and built my house in the mid-1990s. When the military faction attacked the neighbourhood, it was striking that they knew the sectarian identities of the residents. One of the soldiers asked me where I was from. When I answered, he pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the stomach, saying, ‘Aren't you ashamed to live with the Alawites your whole life?’ No one asked me to leave the neighbourhood or for any ownership papers for the house, which reinforced my belief that the plan was to remove only the Alawites".
A miserable life
Living conditions in Somariya were unlike those in other areas of the capital, as they were subject to the decisions of the Fourth Division, which interfered in the lives of residents alongside some influential officers living in military buildings. For many years, the residents did not feel that they belonged to the Damascus Governorate, as the Fourth Division was the one that carried out services in the area after bribes were paid to its officers.
Lama talks about her upbringing in Somariya, where her father is considered one of the founders of the neighbourhood: "Our family comes from the western countryside of Hama. My father is an orphan and has five brothers. When he turned 16 and obtained his preparatory certificate, he volunteered for the Syrian army as an officer. In 1970, he came to Damascus and his salary at that time was 300 Syrian pounds. When he decided to get married, he rented a room in a shared house in the Al-Qadam neighbourhood, where my eldest brother was born in 1976".
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Many Alawis from Syrian provinces gathered in Qadam, Al-Kiswah and Al-Moadhamiya because these areas were the least expensive for them: they were volunteers with low salaries in the army. Lama continues: "In 1983, a friend of my father told us about the Somariya area and the low prices of houses there. My mother sold her gold and my father bought our house. We lived in a single room without electricity or water, by candlelight and kerosene lamps, and we stayed that way until I started primary school. At that time, our neighbour ran a cable from the military housing to steal electricity, and I begged my father to do the same. I will never forget my dreams that night when electricity finally came to our house. A cable was connected to the house, but the power was so weak that it could only light one bulb. We gathered around it in silence, and in the corner there was a candle that gave off a stronger light. We continued to obtain electricity through theft for a long time”.
After some time, Lama's father was sent on a two-year military mission to Libya. “With the financial grant he received, he was able to build another room with a makeshift roof, which did not protect us from the weather. The temperature inside the rooms reached 37 degrees Celsius in the summer and became very cold in the winter, with rain seeping in”. Construction work was carried out after paying the Fourth Division checkpoint to allow the necessary materials to be brought in. Residents used to buy water from mobile tanks to fill their reservoirs, while drinking water was obtained from military buildings.
According to Firas, a former resident of Somariya who left due to poor services, "The Air Force Intelligence prevented residents from building new floors due to their proximity to the Mezzeh military airport, and the neighbourhood remained caught between the interests and influence of the Fourth Division and Air Force Intelligence. My brothers and I grew up and decided to leave and build our house in a safer place, so we settled in Mezzeh 86".
Firas's father, an army officer, was able to use his connections in the transport department to obtain approval from the Fourth Division and extend regular electricity lines to the neighbourhood in 1997. In 2009, water was extended after a visit by a delegation to the director of Maher al-Assad's security office, Ghassan Bilal, and a tax from all the houses in the area. The residents were so happy that they held a march in support of Bashar al-Assad.
Most residents had no additional income other than their government salaries, and their homes remained without exterior cladding, or organisation of streets or shops. The Fourth Division imposed security and financial restrictions that turned Somariya into a private colony. Fouad, a resident of the area and a retired government employee who suffers from a neurological disease that makes him immobile recalls: "I will never forget our neighbour who wanted to open a chicken shop and was arrested and tortured for 15 days at the Fourth Division headquarters to pay the money they demanded of him. We were not only ruled by the Fourth Division, but also by some of our neighbours in the military housing. Some of the children of Fourth Division officers who lived near us were able to set up prefabricated shops to monopolise trade for themselves and bring in their goods without paying customs duties". For years, Somariya was known as a place where you could find cheap goods that were banned from import, and these outlets competed with large shopping centres, some of which became wholesale distributors for the whole city of Damascus.
After the Fall
On the night the regime fell, bulldozers from the Moadhamiya municipality demolished shops on the main road to Somariya. A military faction was in charge of security in the area and had managed to build a friendly and stable relationship with the locals. The faction was replaced by Abu Hudhaifa’s one. In July 2025, bread was banned from entering the area and electricity and water were cut off for days. Then, the military housing was evacuated of its Alawi residents, while the Sunni residents who were former military personnel remained. The evacuated families were replaced by civilians who came from Idlib and families of public security personnel.
During that period no one approached the houses of the violators, and no one expected that to happen despite the many threats made by the residents of Modhamiya on social media that they would reclaim their seized lands.
Rami, a 27-year-old young man with a secondary school diploma, was performing compulsory military service in Deir ez-Zor when the Assad regime fell. When the Deterrence Forces advanced, he took off his military uniform and made his way home to Somariya, some of the journey on foot. Rami currently works as a teacher for preparatory school students. He talks about his experience when the faction entered the neighbourhood: "My friends and I had created a dirt path between the houses that led outside the neighbourhood, and this path helped me get around during the month of July. I would go in the morning and come out before evening to bring bread and distribute it to the residents, left without food for a week. Those who remained did not have the luxury of leaving because they could not afford the cost of transportation. The minimum fare for a transport vehicle was between 3 and 5 million Syrian pounds, and some had no idea where to go, so their only option was to remain under threat. I fled the neighbourhood on the night of the attack because I was a soldier, which made me a target for arrest during the raid”.
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After the latest attack, most families left Somariya, intending not to return for fear. Now, a few months after the incident, many Alawi families who work in the government sector have returned, as they were unable to complete the legal procedures to move out of Damascus permanently. Residents did not want their children to share classrooms with the children of security personnel, fearing for their safety. Some went to Mazzeh 86, while others headed to their villages or other cities because they did not feel safe. According to estimates, there were previously around 4,000 Alawi families: there is no official census and data on population numbers after displacement.
Thinking about the future often kept the residents of Somariya awake at night, as their existence was linked to the Assad regime, causing panic among them after what had happened. Many sold their homes in Mazzeh 86 at half price, especially after rumours about a conversation between one of the Somariya residents leaving the neighbourhood and one of the soldiers at the checkpoint. When the soldier asked him where he was going, he replied that he was heading to 86. The soldier replied, “I advise you to leave Damascus because soon it will be 86's turn”.
A feeling of fear spread throughout all the areas where Alawis live in Damascus and extended to the suburbs, such as the former Assad suburb of Harasta. Although the buildings there are well organised, there is coexistence among residents, and no sectarian incidents have been reported. Many people are currently selling their homes there.
Distant solutions
According to one legal expert, who did not wish to be named, “There was a dispute between the Fourth Division and the Damascus Governorate over the settlement of the status of residents and their property in the area expropriated for the benefit of the governorate in Moadhamiyat al-Sham, on which illegal buildings named Al-Shuhada and Al-Sinaa were constructed in 2004. The properties were confirmed by a court ruling, and the governorate allowed the construction of second floors after this had been prohibited by the security authorities and the Fourth Division. The governorate accepted the objections of the homeowners to settle the status of the buildings”. The problem is significant, as the rights of both the residents of Moadhamiya and the residents of the illegal buildings are being lost. “It would be unfair to the residents of Somariya to deal with the matter by simply demolishing the houses and returning the land to its owners, and the state does not have the money to purchase the real estate at its current price and compensate the residents of Moadhamiya”. Private companies could purchase the land, but in this case too, the residents of Somariya would have to be compensated with alternative housing. “The situation is extremely complex, given the economic difficulties facing the country” he concludes.
In a post on his Facebook page, lawyer Aref al-Sha'al argues that the most appropriate course of action at present is to establish an official body specialising in studying issues of expropriation across Syria. This would make stakeholders and rights holders to be listened to in order to propose appropriate policies and legislation, in a manner that ensures a balance between the rights of the state and those of owners and occupants.
The expropriation of Syrians' land for decades is perhaps one of the greatest injustices in Syria, as they have lost their rights and find it difficult to regain them after buildings have been constructed on their land. This is compounded by a new injustice for people who lived, grew up in, and established lives that spanned from grandfather to grandson in those buildings, creating a complex problem that requires a strong, law-abiding state to resolve, which is not easy to achieve in the short term.
For now, Lama and her neighbors, as the soldier Rami, will not go back home, in the land they didn’t intend to steal.
