On 30 April 2025 Reuters reported that hundreds of Alawite families had been forced from their homes in Damascus since December 2024. 1 This article summarises that report and what has been documented since, including by the UN Commission of Inquiry, and sets out the authorities’ position. The original report is available on reuters.com.
What Reuters found (April 2025)
Supported by independent sources
- Hundreds of Alawites were forced from privately owned homes in Damascus by armed men who identified themselves as General Security members, without court orders, according to officials, Alawite leaders, a human rights group and 12 people interviewed by Reuters. 1
- Two government officials said thousands had been evicted in Damascus, most of them from government housing linked to state jobs they had lost. 1
- According to three senior General Security officials, the authorities set up two committees to manage properties of people perceived as linked to the former government, one for confiscations and one for complaints, modelled on the “War Spoils Committee” of Idlib. 1
- Reuters could not determine to what extent Ahmed al-Sharaa was aware of how homeowners were being evicted, or whether his office oversaw the committees. 1
The Interior Ministry and the presidency did not respond to Reuters. On 12 February 2025 the Damascus governor had invited people whose property had been unjustly seized to file complaints. 1
What the UN Commission of Inquiry found (March 2026)
Supported by independent sources
The UN Commission of Inquiry reported that in the al-Somarya neighbourhood of Damascus, between December 2024 and August 2025, “General Security and armed men affiliated with the government” used violence to evict residents from military housing and adjacent informal areas within hours; in al-Zahryat, residents of military housing were given 72 hours to leave. 2
It describes a campaign in al-Somarya in July 2025 led by a commander reportedly from the Interior Ministry’s housing department, followed on 27 August by a raid by hundreds of armed men; male residents, including boys as young as 12, were reportedly arrested, and some were beaten and forced to sign eviction pledges. It also reports that properties of Alawite detainees in Homs, Latakia and Rural Damascus were looted, confiscated and occupied by members of the government’s security forces, and that dozens of Alawite villages in northern Hama were emptied. 2
Supported by independent sources
Reuters reported in September 2025 that eviction notices in al-Somarya were issued in the name of a “Public Housing Committee of the General Secretariat of the Presidency”, a body of which it found no previous record. Neighbourhood committee figures, which Reuters could not verify, put the population’s fall at about 22,000 to about 3,000. 3 The Syria Report found the notice unsigned and undated; governorate officials described the events as illegal but said they could not intervene. 4
The authorities’ position
In a note to the UN Commission dated 28 January 2026, the government said that one-month evacuation notices had been issued in July 2025 for military housing belonging to the state in al-Somarya and al-Zahryat, that no attacks or incidents were recorded during the evacuation, and that “unknown individuals” had attacked homes while security forces intervened to protect residents. 2
In September 2025 the Damascus governor described al-Somarya as the product of unjust expropriation under the former government and committed to resolving the situation without forced evictions, through legal committees. 3 5 Part of the land is still registered to owners from neighbouring Moadamiyat al-Sham, which means the dispute has victims on more than one side. 6
Remedies
According to the UN Commission, committees handling housing, land and property claims have been set up at governorate level, notably in Damascus, Homs and Hama, but operate “without a unified mandate, standardized legal framework, or effective central coordination”. 2 PAX reports that seizures by private parties backed by fighters have become rarer as the authorities treat them as unlawful. 7 We found no documented restitution or compensation for evicted Alawite residents.
The Idlib precedent
Supported by independent sources
Before December 2024, HTS’s “Spoils Office” in Idlib took over no fewer than 550 homes and businesses belonging to Christians on the grounds that their owners were absent, according to Syrians for Truth and Justice. 8 Reuters’ sources said the committees set up in Damascus were modelled on it. 1
What remains unclear
- The legal basis of the committees described by Reuters and of the “Public Housing Committee” named in eviction notices.
- Who ordered the al-Somarya campaign, and at what level it was approved.
- The total number of families evicted, and how many have returned or been compensated.
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People in this article
Sources
- Press Minutes to leave: Syria’s Alawites evicted from private homes at gunpoint (by Amina Ismail) — Reuters, April 30, 2025
- Official record Report A/HRC/61/62 (covering 8 December 2024 – 31 January 2026), including the government’s note verbale of 28 January 2026 — UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, March 12, 2026
- Press How Syrian forces emptied Alawite suburb: X means stay, O means go — Reuters (via The Straits Times), September 12, 2025
- Press Pressures and raids drive residents of al-Sumariya out of their homes — The Syria Report (Housing, Land and Property), September 2025
- Press Evictions in Alawite slums of al-Somoriyeh reignite historic property disputes — Syria Direct, September 10, 2025
- Human-rights organisation Forced evictions in the al-Sumaria neighborhood of Damascus — Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), February 2026
- Human-rights organisation Reclaiming what was taken: housing, land and property in Syria’s transition — PAX, September 2025
- Human-rights organisation HTS confiscates no less than 550 homes and businesses belonging to Christians in Idlib — Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), January 14, 2020