On Friday, 28 November 2025, about 100 employees working at the Port of Latakia in western Syria received official decisions from the interim authority “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” to transfer them to distant crossings in the rural areas of Deir ez-Zor, Idlib, and Aleppo, most notably the Al-Bukamal crossing, through messages sent to them via the WhatsApp application.
According to the employees’ testimonies, the overwhelming majority of those transferred are from the Alawite community, including women.
According to activists, the transfer decisions came in a retaliatory context after the Syrian coast and central regions witnessed, on 25 November 2025, a wide wave of peaceful demonstrations at 42 locations, concentrated in areas with an Alawite majority, demanding: “an end to killing, kidnapping, and forced arrest, the release of detainees, and the adoption of a federal system of governance.”
Following those gatherings and peaceful demonstrations, demonstrations by supporters of the authority took place in Homs, Baniyas, Hama, and Latakia, during which sectarian slogans were raised calling for the killing and displacement of Alawites. In the city of Latakia, sectarian groups roamed neighborhoods with an Alawite majority and smashed cars and commercial shops.
Activists believe that this pattern of decisions constitutes an indirect means of getting rid of them professionally without bearing legal or oversight consequences before public opinion, in a repetition of previous methods.
Documented facts indicate that the collective transfer decisions affecting 100 employees, most of whom are from the Alawite community, from the Port of Latakia to distant crossings came within the context of security and retaliatory measures that followed widespread peaceful demonstrations, and were accompanied by arrests, summonses of mukhtars and community notables, the use of excessive force to disperse protests, and an escalation of sectarian incitement rhetoric and attacks on property.
