Masaoudiyeh, Lebanon – Hassan Suleiman sweated in the morning sun and sweated despite the ice-cold water that sat on his shoulders under the child's weight, a backpack and a full of Bursten plastic bag, which he carried over the Kabir river.
Behind him stuck his wife, his mother -in -law and other relatives who carefully moved into the river bed. Behind them meandered many other people, a constantly growing line that all flee from violence that devour their country for the relative safety of Lebanon.
There had passed five days since the clashes between loyalists of the deposed president Bashar Assad and the Syrian government troops had turned into a sectarian battles and the villages converted into the emerald Lusiness of the province of Tartus into slaughterhouses.
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During this time, hundreds of civilians – almost 1,000, as some activists say – were folded down, tortured and mainly against Alawites, Coralionists from Assad. Many hard Sunni Islamists count members of the alawite sect as unbelievers.
Although the Syrian officials insisted on the fact that the situation was now under control and that the government associated with the government that would be punished in targeted civilian population was punished that an Alawite maker would not take any risk.
Badriyah Ayyash, on the right, a Syrian refugee who escaped from sectarian violence came to the Nordlibanon with her grandchildren. You now stay in an ash block building that is bound to a village school.
(Nabih Bulos / Los Angeles Times)
His village of Ransiyah was barely one and a half miles from the river, which marks part of the border between Lebanon and Syria. That made it close enough for him to take stealthy trips to get things from his house. But he remained short visits and feared that he hadn't had enough time to escape if state -oriented armed men would attack.
“The government are liars,” he said. “Yes, maybe it's quiet during the day. But they come and slaughter you at night. “He took a look at the people who gathered on the Syrian side of the river on Monday, take off their shoes and roll up their legs before they dipped their feet into the water.
Suleiman sighed.
He came to Lebanon together with other men on Friday because men were targeted. If it were alone, he would risk return to Syria.
But he had to think of his daughter: In his thoughts, dozens of videos were feverish among the villagers, who showed how the residents were and they made their heads with an AK-47 ball.
“If someone comes from the government for us and use a rifle to kill it, they (branded) are a criminal. They then held accountable and they slaughter them. ”
One side of the other side, if they don't defend themselves, he said: “He kills them. There is no solution. “
The 35 -year -old Abu Ali, who had just crossed with his wife and three sons, was nearby. He had escaped the first days of Tartus City's riots to his village Sheikh Saeed, 22 miles north of the Lebanese border. Then he decided to flee from the village.
“We left this morning because we were told that armed men came to our building in Tartus and picked up fighting men,” said Abu Ali, pointing to his sons, all young men over 18 years old. Like many respondents, he refused to give his complete name out of fear of reprisals and still sign relatives in Syria in Syria.
“In half an hour you will find all villagers in this area here on this page. There is no alawite there. “
During the almost 14-year civil war in Syria, Lebanon organized around 1.5 million to 2 million Syrians. Around 260,000 of them returned home after autumn in November.
But the recent unrest, which previously triggered an exodus of around 7,616 into Lebanon, was an undesirable reversal for the authorities.
Dozens of Syrians are starting all day to enter informal border crossings like this Lebanon.
(Nabih Bulos / Los Angeles Times)
“We received it because it is a humanitarian situation, but our situation as a community is below zero,” said Ali Ahmad al-Ali, the mayor of Masaoudiyeh, a village dominated by Alawit near a kink in the narrow and flat Kabir. In two years he would have an annual budget of 220,000 US dollars for dealing with the refugee inflow. But the suffering crisis of the Lebanon has reduced this number to around 4,000 US dollars.
“So far we have 550 families,” said Al-Ali, adding that they were protected in Masaoudiyeh's mosque, school and houses of the residents.
“And while I talk to you, I was only fed up with four or five new ones. We can't keep up. “
Amaar Saqo, a farmer from the village of Khirbet al-Hamam has been a provisional house since Friday, when he escaped with his wife, in a farmer from the village of Khirbet al-Hamam, when he escaped with his wife to escape with his wife, six children and other members of his extended family, near Delen, sat in an incoming ash with Villages.
“We left at 4 a.m.
“They say that they pursue regime loyalists. Is my child a regime loyalist? Is my wife a regime loyalist? “
The clashes began on Thursday, when 16 security personnel were killed in the rural areas of the Alawit -dominated coast in Syria. The Syrian Network for Human Rights or Snhr, a war monitor, counted 172 security personnel who were killed by Antigerment staff who also killed 211 civilians in sectarian attacks.
Since more and more security forces were surrounded and killed by militant Pro Assad, the government called for reinforcements that attracted political groups and armed armed men.
Although they largely put down the coup, many turned their anger on Alawites, a largely impoverished minority that constitutes around 10% of the country's population and dominated Assad era. (Alawites say that some, although some benefited from their connection to the previous government, assads cronyism was ecumenical and benefited from a tiny group of people from all sects.)
The Snhr said that 420 people were killed by the government forces and the Allied factions, including a large number of civilians. Another war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the number of civilian population at 973. Other activists say that thousands are dead.
In the past few days, Al-Sharaa has ordered the formation of a committee to examine and punish violations of civilians.
But in a climate in which distrust was the dominant emotion, Saqo and many others who were questioned here were that the government troops were now working on the frame they had slaughtered, dressed in uniforms and plant weapons on them to prove that the military argument was fighting against terrorism.
There were hardly any indications of this or for the assertion of the number of government that the Assad loyalists who had committed the worst violations to sabotage Sully al-Sharaas image and sabotage of his attempts to achieve international legitimacy.
However, reports on continued attacks were eagerly taken up to strengthen the competing stories of the competing camps: On the one hand, there is a once powerful minority that is not ready to give up its influence, on the other hand an Islamist government with al-Qaida roots, which finally remove its mask of courtesy.
But for the people who wade over the Kabir River, their concern is home and is safe.
“We want international interventions. Russia, un – everyone. We won't return without protection, ”said Khadija, a woman in the fifties who stayed with her sons in school, and repeated a common perspective among the refugees here.