7,000 Christians and Alawites have been “slaughtered” in Syria according to Greek Member of the European Parliament, Nikolas Farantouris, a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security & Defense, who visited Damascus on 8-9 March.
SYRIZA MEP Nikolas Farantouris has returned from the Syrian capital, where he met with religious leaders, including Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X of Antioch and the Near East, and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the new regime in Damascus.
His visit over the weekend coincided as the forces of the Turkish-backed Islamist regime horrifically massacred Alawites and Christians, including Greek Orthodox, with the death poll being placed at over 7,000.
“Reliable data indicate 7,000 Christians and Alawites slaughtered and unprecedented atrocities against civilians. Christian and other communities with a millennial presence in this region are at risk of extinction,” Farantouris said in a statement following his visit.
“The new Islamic regime is leading Syria into an Islamic state and is pretending that it cannot control the paramilitaries and the gangs associated with them who attack innocent civilians,” he continued, adding that Patriarch John X made an appeal “to stop the bloodshed, while in our private meeting he pointed out the tragic shortages of food and medicine that Christians are facing.”
“I call on the Greek Government and the governments of [EU] Member States, to act now. Neither Greece nor the EU can continue to show tolerance and be limited to ceremonial visits and courtesies with the Islamic regime for investments and ‘business’ while thousands of civilians are being slaughtered with its acquiescence, if not its guidance. Measures must be taken here and now before it is entirely too late,” the MEP concluded.
The massacres over the past few days was the worst violence to hit Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December.
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group led the offensive that toppled Assad, alarmed by the international outrage has attempted to distance himself from the violence and vowed to “hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who was involved in the bloodshed of civilians”.
“There will be no one above the law and anyone whose hands have been stained with the blood of Syrians will face justice sooner or later,” he said.
However, amid international outrage, the new Syrian regime has also urged the Turkish-backed Islamist fighters under its control to stop recording the violence and massacres in an attempt to hide their crimes.
In a statement on official news agency SANA, defense ministry spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani said security forces had neutralized security threats and “regime remnants” in Latakia and Tartus provinces on the Mediterranean coast. Much of the violence against Alawites and Christians civilians has been under the guise of ending leftover pockets of Assad loyalists, but it has been documented that the elderly, women and children were murdered.
The violence has caused outrage across Greece
President of the Niki Party, Dimitris Natsios, said “Islam cannot be tolerant and respectful of minorities” and called on the Greek government to “take an interest in the Greeks of Syria who are in great danger.”
“Terrorist Islamists cannot suddenly become democrats. It has never happened in history. Islam cannot be tolerant and respectful of minorities. Now massacres of innocent civilians, women and children. A genocide of the Christian population in progress,” Natsios said.
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs bears a great responsibility. Instead of supporting the Ukrainians wherever he stands and finds them, let him also take an interest in the Greeks of Syria who are in great danger,” the Niki president added.
The party leader of Hellenic Solution, Kyriakos Velopoulos, vowed to “undertake an international initiative to stop the genocide” in Syria of the Rum (Antiochian Greek Christians) and Alawites “by the Turkish-led monsters.”
“The unthinkable statement by ‘European diplomacy,’ namely Kaja Kallas, justifying the genocide being carried out by the Turkish-led hordes that have occupied Syria, against Christians, Alawites and other religious groups, is a shame for Europe and all civilized humanity,” he said, adding, “The Greek government, which tolerates such statements despite a genocide with massacres of priests, entire families, torture and rape by the Turkish-led monsters, is also complicit and will be judged by history.”
“The Hellenic Solution will undertake an international initiative to stop the genocide of the indigenous Rum and other religious groups in Syria and to hold accountable the criminals against humanity that the corrupt leaders of Europe want to involve in European Defense,” the party leader said.
Meanwhile, MP Alexandros Zerveas of the Spartiates Party, said that any violation of minority rights “should result in the strictest consequences at the diplomatic, economic and military levels.”