Christians and other minorities in Syria are still facing threats from Islamist militants despite the establishment of a new government in the country last year, Trócaire has said.
Speaking with The Irish Catholic, Trócaire’s Head of Portfolio / Fragile & Conflict Affected States, Birke Herzbruch said that the current government is “still struggling to establish control over the different forces.”
“ISIS is still very much present in Syria, particularly in the northeast, the camps, but also it has different cells across the country.”
The current government is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously led the Islamist militant group known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
HTS has previously had close links to al-Qaeda and ISIS, however having disaffiliated from the terrorist groups the new Syrian government has now become a target.
“The new government in place has ruffled internally a lot of feathers given the history where the HTS was coming from standing against al-Qaeda and ISIS at one point”, Ms Herzbruch said.
“And they certainly have a strong interest in shaking the foundations of a new Syria and trying to be as disruptive as possible.”
“HTS is not a homogeneous group of people. There are a lot of foreign fighters that probably have their own agenda.”
“The honeymoon period has disappeared and there are actually more and more concerns being raised around the presence of all of those fighters and the forces across the country, having moved down from the northwest now to Damascus”.
Ms Herzbruch also noted that the role of women in Syrian society has changed since the new government took power.
“We are already seeing in some areas tendencies of a more conservative approach towards society and that obviously created a lot of fear, primarily in women.”
“We see in our program areas with the partners, that gender segregation now becomes an issue that authorities really want to see.”
“For now, the partners are very much able to still implement the programmes as planned.”
