He wants to build a new Syria with reconciliation

The hope that Syria will heal faded when lots of Alawiter and Christians were killed.

A reconciliation work is required to break the long -standing spiral, according to Roy Moussalli, which founded an interreligious aid organization.

– We have always seen diversity as necessary, but could never imagine it would be as important as now.

Careful optimism was over large parts of the ethnic and religiously divided Syria when dictator Bashar al-Assad last winter was overthrown after decades of horror government.

Then it all happened.

Well over 1,000 people – no official figure has been confirmed yet – killed in coastal areas where mainly the Shiite minority group that Assad belonged to, Alawiter, lives. Many Christians were also killed.

One of the few aid organizations on site was the one that Roy Moussalli founded in the early 2000s. SSSD, Syrian Society for Social Development, emerged as an interreligious aid organization with a focus on particularly vulnerable, as people with disabilities or children who have ended up obliquely.

“When the war broke out, all Syrians were exposed,” says Roy Moussalli, visiting Stockholm.

Employees affected

The organization switched up. Today, it has 1,200 employees and even more volunteer workers around the country – including in the coastal area where the violence broke out in early March.

– One of our volunteers was killed with her husband in their home. Only their three -month -old infants survived, because they did not see him.

“They” are militia, which was put in to curb what the new board under Sunni leader Ahmed al-Sharaa assumed to be the beginning of an uprising against the leadership.

It is likely, according to Moussalli, that the militias that, to varying degrees, implemented mass killing are not under the direct control of the board, but acted on its own initiative.

– The worst sides of humanity appear on such occasions. But at the same time, we have employees, Alawiter, who when they fled their homes received protection from Sunni Muslims. The best is also the case, says Moussalli.

National reconciliation is required

A large part of SSSD’s work is about working for reconciliation between groups at the local level. Now that people have started returning to the areas where mass killing has taken place, the organization ensures that those who help and distribute supplies belong to other peoples other than those affected.

But increasing confidence must be the focus on national level as well, says moussalli. The new board has launched an investigation committee that will keep the guilty of the massacres responsible. It was precisely such efforts that were missing during Assad, says Moussalli, who, however, emphasizes that we have to wait and see if Al-Sharaa is serious about shiping justice.

Despite the uncertainties, he is still optimistic.

– We don’t have many other opportunities.