AL-BAYDA, Syria – Like other Syrian cities, this village in the mountains of coastal Tartous province is a ghost town after fighting here last year left it decimated. Bustling Christian neighborhoods give way to deserted streets once populated by Sunnis. Skeletons of burnt, looted homes line the streets; once tidy orchards, left unattended, are overgrown.
On May 2, 2013, al-Bayda was the site of two days of heavy fighting between Assad fighters and opposition forces. After the rebel retreat, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented what they call “mass executions” in al-Bayda and the neighboring village of Banias, with 167 people killed in Bayda. The organization determined that the overwhelming majority were executed after military clashes ended and opposition fighters had retreated.
The intent was to cleanse the city’s Sunni neighborhoods, centers of pro-opposition sentiment, and to scare residents from returning. Many of al-Bayda’s residents thus became internally displaced persons, fleeing for nearby farmland – close enough to drive past the village, to send their children to school there, but too scared to make a permanent return.
“The Syrian government has not hesitated to inflict heavy casualties on civilian populations in rebel controlled territory, either as collateral damage while targeting rebel positions or in a deliberate attempt to turn the population against the rebel presence,” says Omar Lamrani, a military analyst at Stratfor who studies the Syrian regime.
There still are still missing people whose bodies have never been found. In a report filed after the massacre, HRW said government forces separated men from women before executing a number of civilians at close range. “Twenty-three women and 14 children, including infants, were executed,” it wrote.
As similar executions were carried out in Banias, where 81 died, raids and arrests were made in the villages of al-Marqab, Beit Jinad, al-Basateen and al-Adimah.
Most of al-Bayda’s remaining residents left the village and settled on farms in Wata Al-Bayda, an area of Tartous that stretches from the foothills to the sea.
“When the village was raided over a year ago, I was already here on my little farm,” says one former resident. “My wife and sons were back in our home in the village. I was so scared for them, but I couldn’t enter the village to check up on them. But my family was able to escape by taking refuge at our friend’s house located in the Christian quarter, which wasn’t raided. The house next to our home was shelled, killing all those inside. My family saw human remains while they were fleeing.”
A year later, he still will not return to al-Bayda.
“I snuck back into the village a few days after the massacre. The smell of death was overpowering,” he says. “I learned that my brother’s family was killed. My home was looted and burnt to the ground. We thought of returning to fix up the house, but the state hadn’t rebuilt the water and power infrastructure. Some families tried to go back, but they were harassed by pro-regime armed groups who want the village to stay deserted.”
He and his family now live on the farm, eating the crops they grow. He says the government will not allow him to enroll his son at any school other than the one at home in the village, so the boy walks miles to al-Bayda each day, passing the family’s old home on his way.
Other internally displaced children from al-Bayda follow suit, walking through deserted areas of their village to reach class. The school is located next to the mass grave where some of their peers are buried.
“Syrian authorities don’t want the Sunni quarters to return to life,” says one Tartous media activist. “They want to teach the people who rebelled against them a lesson, and they want their kids to remember the massacre as well.
“We’ve tried to fix the water and power infrastructure, but the authorities wouldn’t allow it. The regime has allowed us to provide food to displaced al-Bayda residents wherever they are now, but it has prevented us from providing items they would need to return to the village.”