BRUSSELS — In a statement resonating with alarm and urgency, the European Syriac Union (ESU) has called on the international community to take swift and concrete measures to safeguard religious communities in Syria—particularly the historic Christian communities of the country’s south and other regions.
Released on October 11, 2025, the statement was more than a routine political declaration; it sounded like a wake-up call, reminding the world that one of the Middle East’s oldest cultural pillars is facing a slow extinction before the eyes of the international community.
The ESU expressed its “deep concern about the increasing attacks and massacres targeting Christian civilians in various regions of Syria, especially in areas under the control of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).” The statement highlighted the killing of a young Christian man, Maher Shaker Qablan, in the town of Tibneh, in rural Daraa, where masked gunmen executed him in cold blood.
According to the Union, this act “is not an isolated incident, but part of a systematic policy of terror aimed at driving Christians from their ancestral lands.” The statement went on to accuse armed groups receiving political and logistical backing from Western powers of “dismantling Syria’s historical and cultural fabric and uprooting its native Christian communities.”
Despite the repetition of such attacks in recent years, no serious international or regional action has been taken to protect these communities, allowing the violations to grow unchecked.
In its appeal, the ESU urged the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, the European Union, and human rights organizations to act decisively. Its main demands include:
Deploying international monitoring missions in southern Syria and nearby areas to safeguard Christian communities.
Launching an independent international investigation to identify perpetrators and hold them accountable under international law.
Pressuring actors on the ground to immediately halt attacks and guarantee that these communities can remain in their ancestral homelands with safety and dignity.
Syria’s Christian populations— particularly the Syriacs (Chaldeans–Assyrians–Arameans)— represent far more than religious communities. They are among the oldest cultural foundations of the Levant, having shaped Syrian and Middle Eastern civilization for millennia and witnessed the birth of great religions and empires.
Yet since the outbreak of conflict in 2011, their presence has shrunk dramatically amid assassinations, forced displacement, the destruction of churches, and massacres spanning from the Khabur region to Daraa. Today, Syriacs and other Christians face the looming danger of disappearance from their historic lands if global silence persists.
The ESU’s statement is not simply a rights-based appeal—it is a moral test for the international community’s credibility. Protecting Syria’s indigenous communities is not merely an internal issue; it is a human and civilizational duty tied to the preservation of world heritage itself.
A Syriac activist from Hasakah said in an interview: “We are not asking for weapons or military intervention. We ask only for protection—protection for our children to stay in school, for our right to pray in our churches without fear, and for our people not to become a footnote in history books.”
In a world preoccupied with wars and geopolitical rivalries, the cry of Syria’s Christians echoes faintly, as if from a forgotten valley. Yet history teaches a harsh lesson: when humanity turns its gaze away from suffering, the tragedy does not fade—it deepens.
The duty now lies with the global conscience—to act, not tomorrow, but today—to shield the last living threads of an ancient civilization before they vanish forever.