The fall of Bashar al-Assad allowed the Abou Latif family to realise their dream of returning to their homeland of Syria this summer. But they found themselves caught up in the fighting between Druze and jihadists in the city of Sweida. Wife and mother Amjaad returned to Paris with her two children, but without her husband.
Refusing to support the repressive regime of Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad, Amjaad and her husband Firas decided they had no choice but to flee it.
Having studied in France between 2005 and 2011, in 2014 the couple – he an IT specialist, she a maths teacher – settled in north-west France and quickly obtained French citizenship.
From their adopted city of Rouen, the Abou Latif family – Amjaad, Firas and their two children – witnessed the fall of Assad's regime in December 2024. As for most Syrians, this was cause for celebration – and time to plan a return trip.
Amjaad and Firas, who are both part of the Druze community, a branch of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They decided to go back to their native Sweida, a Druze-majority province in the south of Syria, for the summer holidays.
For the couple, this would be a reunion with their families, while for their children, aged five and 15, it would be a discovery of their homeland.
New legal action launched against Syria’s Assad after French court ruling
Stranded in Swedia
"We left on 5 June," says Amjaad. "We arrived in Damascus and then went to Sweida, where we had planned to stay for two months to spend the holidays there. We had a great first month with the family. Then, in the space of two days, it all came crashing down."
On 13 July, Amjaad recalls that there were clashes between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in Sweida which left 37 people dead.
Similarly deadly clashes had already occurred in April and May, pitting Syrian security forces against Druze fighters. At that time, local and religious leaders concluded agreements aimed at containing the escalation and better integrating the Druze fighters into the country's new post-Assad power structures.
Amjaad, her husband and children found themselves stranded with her parents-in-law in the centre of Sweida.
"The children started to get very scared and my husband told me to leave the city with them, to go to my parents who were in a village a long way from Sweida."
Amjaad and the children arrived in Qanaouat, seven kilometres to the north, with the plan being that they would stay there until the situation calmed down in the provincial capital.
France condemns reported atrocities against civilians in Syria’s Sweida
But the fighting continued and her husband Firas could not find a way to leave Sweida. Tanks rolled into the town centre, and regime men entered houses and looted everything in sight.
Firas and his brother-in-law took refuge in one of the rooms in the family's house. "On Wednesday, 16 July, before 9am, my husband sent me a text message to say that the tanks had entered the neighbourhood, but that everything was fine with him. At 10am, he sent a text message to the neighbourhood group saying: 'We're trapped here, help, help." From 10.30am onwards, communication was interrupted."
Firas and his brother-in-law were both shot dead. Then five rocket-propelled grenades hit the house, before it was burnt down.
'There were corpses all over the town'
Amjaad was told what had happened by neighbours who had managed to hide. On 17 July, the remains of her brother-in-law's head were found, along with Firas's watch.
With the security situation in the town becoming increasingly catastrophic, Amjaad and her children had to wait a week before they could return and take refuge in an uncle's house.
They were stuck there for almost two weeks, unable to return to Damascus from where they could take a flight to France. The town was surrounded by jihadists, recalls Amjaad. "There was no drinking water, food or medicine left. There were corpses all over the town, especially around the hospital."
A ceasefire put an end to a week of deadly clashes on 20 July, but the situation remains tense and access to the province is difficult. Government troops have set up roadblocks on the access roads, and will only let authorised vehicles through.
Amjaad's brother, who also lives in France, called the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the family's behalf. The French embassy in Lebanon then told him to contact the Syrian White Helmets – the country's humanitarian and civil defence volunteer organisation – who offered to collect the family from outside the town.
"I said no, it was impossible," Amjaad says. "We couldn't do it. Because to get to the meeting point they had given me, we had to go through villages that were in the hands of jihadists. What's more, we had no petrol. I said we'd have to find another solution and they told me: 'It's the embassy, that's the way it is, there's no other way.'"
Syria’s interim president vows justice for Druze after deadly clashes
'We don't want jihadists'
In the end, Amjaad and her children managed to leave with the help of a family friend. On 30 July, thanks to their foreign passports, the Syrian Red Crescent took charge of them and transferred them out of the town.
With them were many other foreign Druze, including a large number of Venezuelans, all of whom had also come to Syria to be with their loved ones for the summer holidays, taking their first chance to come back to the country for years.
"We, the Druze, had always refused to fight alongside Assad, we were part of the opposition, and now [Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country's new president] comes along and imposes Islamism on us," Amjaad said, angrily.
"In Sweida, we didn't accept the jihadists taking power. We saw what they did against the Alawites in March," she added, referring to the killing of members of the country's Alawite religious minority, followers of an offshoot of Shia Islam, to which former president Assad belongs.
On Thursday, 31 July, Amjaad and her two children left for Paris, travelling via Istanbul.
She's in shock over what has happened, but she's also angry. "I'm trying to find the strength to respond to what's happened, here in France – to file complaints, to speak out about the reality in Syria today. So that the government that replaced Assad leaves, like he did. We don't want jihadists."
On the same day Amjaad returned to France, the Syrian Ministry of Justice announced the formation of a commission to investigate the deadly inter-communal violence in the Sweida province.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the violence has left more than 1,400 people dead, including by summary execution – the majority of whom were Druze.
The OSDH claims that "the authorities are imposing a blockade on the province of Sweida to make its inhabitants comply".
Several aid convoys have entered the province since the ceasefire, including one sent on 31 July by the United Nations, which has warned the humanitarian situation is "critical".
This article was adapted from the original version in French.
