Abductions of Alawite women: what the UN, Reuters, the BBC and Amnesty found, and what the Interior Ministry says

Supported by independent sources

• The Commission investigated 21 abductions of women and girls, four of them minors, in Latakia, Tartous, Hama, Damascus, Rural Damascus and Homs. Most victims were Alawite, several of them married with children; one was a Sunni girl. ¹
• In most cases the perpetrators and their affiliation remained unidentified: unidentified armed actors, organised crime groups or individual criminals. In one case the abductors were foreign fighters from units nominally integrated into the Ministry of Defence; credible information about at least two further cases involving foreign fighters was under investigation. ¹
• Many Alawite victims were beaten and subjected to sectarian slurs; at least five were questioned about their knowledge of Islam, forced to perform religious rites or made to wear the niqab. Other abductions appear to have been motivated by ransom, and some ransom demands came from people with no link to the abduction. ¹
• At least eight abductees were subjected to sexual violence, including gang rape and forced marriage; at least two women and one girl returned pregnant. ¹
• Some victims were taken to Idlib governorate; others were smuggled across an international border, including to Lebanon. ¹
• The abductions spread fear among minority women: some families stopped girls attending school or university, and some women began wearing a headscarf to avoid being identified as members of a minority. ¹

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According to the Commission, the response of state authorities varied widely. Some investigations were opened but not followed up; in other cases security officials actively discouraged families from pursuing or publicising a case, sometimes with threats, and in one case a person filing a complaint was beaten by local police. Some victims or relatives were told not to speak to the media or were forced to record videos saying the victim had left voluntarily. In one case where the victim identified the perpetrator to the police, no arrest was made. ¹

The Commission also recorded cases in which the authorities located abducted women, sometimes using information from families; in two cases victims were rescued by state forces in Idlib and the alleged abductors were arrested and prosecuted there. In two other cases, victims freed by government forces were themselves arrested and investigated by judges in Idlib for “morality” offences. ¹

Amnesty International said in July 2025 that it had received credible reports of at least 36 Alawite women and girls, aged three to 40, abducted since February 2025 in Latakia, Tartous, Homs and Hama. It documented eight cases in detail and found that in all but one, police and security forces had failed to investigate effectively; in two cases families paid ransoms without securing release. ⁴

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On 2 November 2025 Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a ministry investigation into 42 reported abductions had found only one genuine kidnapping. He described the other cases as voluntary elopement, staying with relatives or friends, fleeing domestic violence, false claims on social media, or prostitution and extortion, with four classed as criminal offences for which arrests were made, and said the ministry treated such reports with “utmost seriousness and responsibility”. ^{5 3} In January 2026 the government told the UN Commission that five of six cases it had examined were not abductions. ¹ Asked by the BBC about the accounts it had gathered, the ministry said it had no further comment. ³

Local officials took a similar line. A media officer for the governor of Tartous told Reuters that most cases of missing women were family disputes or personal matters, and a media officer for Latakia governorate said that in many cases women had eloped and families had invented abduction stories; neither presented evidence. ²

Supported by independent sources

• Reuters identified at least 33 Alawite women and girls aged 16 to 39 who were abducted or went missing in the first half of 2025 in Tartous, Latakia and Hama, according to their families; nearly half later returned home, and none of them would discuss what had happened, most citing security fears. ²
• Of 16 cases Reuters examined in detail, families in seven received ransom demands of $1,500 to $100,000, and three abductees told relatives they had been taken out of the country; eight of the 16 were under 18. Most families said the police did not take their reports seriously. The government did not respond to Reuters’ questions. ²
• The Syrian Feminist Lobby told the BBC it had recorded reports of more than 80 missing women between February and December 2025, had confirmed 26 as kidnappings, and that 16 women, all Alawite, were still missing. ³