Last May, a 16-year-old girl left her home in northwestern Syria to go to a shop — and vanished. Weeks later, an unidentified caller contacted her devastated family, claiming he was holding the teenager and would release her in exchange for thousands of dollars in ransom, according to four people familiar with the case.
The family paid the ransom, and the girl returned in August, more than 100 days after her abduction. She told trusted individuals that she had been held in a dark, damp basement, regularly drugged, and raped by strangers, according to the same four sources.
A medical examination revealed another shock: the girl had returned pregnant.
Since the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime in late 2024, alarmed families and activists trying to help have repeatedly warned on social media that Alawite women and girls in Syria have been mysteriously disappearing or being kidnapped. Many fear their community is being targeted in revenge for Assad’s brutality, as he himself belongs to the Alawite sect.
The al-Sharaa government has denied that Alawite women and girls are being targeted by kidnappers, stating it has confirmed only one such case. However, a New York Times investigation, based on dozens of interviews with Alawites who say they were kidnapped, their relatives, and others involved in their cases, found that such abductions have become common and are often brutal.
The newspaper verified 13 cases of kidnapped Alawite women and girls, in addition to one man and one boy. Five of the women said they had been raped. Two returned pregnant.
The family of one woman said they sent $17,000 to kidnappers who never released her, providing screenshots of ransom demands and money transfer receipts. A 24-year-old woman said she was held for three weeks in a filthy room where men raped her, beat her, shaved her head and eyebrows, and cut her with razor blades. Her relatives also paid ransom, and in her case she was released, according to four people familiar with the incident.
Syrian activists say they know of dozens of similar cases, but details are difficult to verify because victims and their families are too afraid to speak.
Most people interviewed requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from either the government or the kidnappers. For the same reason, the newspaper did not publish the names of most of those abducted.
The newspaper corroborated accounts through victims and relatives, social media posts announcing their disappearance and return, ransom messages sent by kidnappers, and interviews with medical and humanitarian workers who spoke with the women after their release.
The kidnappings have occurred against a backdrop of deep mistrust between the Alawite minority — about one-tenth of Syria’s population — and the new government. Assad relied heavily on his sect in the military and security apparatus during his rule, leading many former Sunni rebels now governing Syria to associate Alawites with the former regime.
In March, this resentment fueled days of sectarian violence in northwestern Syria that killed about 1,400 people, according to a United Nations investigation. The inquiry found that some government security forces took part in the killings, deepening fear among many Alawites.
Most of the abducted women and girls, along with their relatives, said the government did not take their cases seriously.
Nour al-Din Baba, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said in an interview that he could not respond to the newspaper’s findings without being given the names of the verified cases, which the paper declined to provide. He argued that pregnancy does not prove abduction and that ransom messages can be fabricated. “For all these ransoms, where is the evidence?” he said.
He added that he stands by a government investigation released in November that examined 42 alleged kidnapping cases and found only one to be “real.” In other cases, he said, the women had been involved in prostitution or other crimes, had eloped with lovers, or fled family problems — then later claimed abduction with their families to avoid social stigma.
Victims and their relatives described a completely different picture: women and girls abducted from the streets by armed men near their homes or while running daily errands. They reported being kidnapped either by other Syrians or by foreign jihadists who came to Syria during the 13-year war hoping to establish an Islamic state.
Many said their captors insulted Alawites, claiming they considered them permissible to rob and rape — a view promoted by extremist ideologies.
A 33-year-old woman said she was abducted last summer by four armed men. Like other victims, she recalled that her captors asked if she was Alawite. When she said yes, they replied they were going to “have fun,” she said, adding: “They wanted to humiliate Alawites.”
Rima Fleihan, executive director of the Syrian Women’s Lobby, a nonprofit that tracks such cases, said sectarian revenge is driving the kidnappings. “These are systematic operations targeting this community. They are trying to make it vulnerable,” she said.
The newspaper also documented five cases of Alawite women who disappeared and remain missing, though it could not determine whether they were abducted. One of them, 41-year-old Atab Jadid, disappeared in May after buying ice cream near Syria’s Mediterranean coast, according to her mother. The family reported her disappearance to police but received no updates and no ransom demands.
The newspaper could not independently verify every detail but found striking similarities with cases documented by rights groups. Amnesty International said in July it had credible reports of 36 similar kidnappings and documented eight cases. In August, a U.N. commission said it had verified six such cases and received “credible reports” of dozens more under investigation.
Ms. Fleihan said the Syrian Women’s Lobby recorded 80 Alawite women and girls missing since early 2025. Of these, 26 were confirmed kidnappings, including cases involving physical or psychological abuse. Ten returned home, three remain missing, and the fate of 13 others is unclear. She added that the government has not supported those who returned: “They blame the women more than they see them as survivors.”
All families interviewed said they reported their cases to security forces. While some encountered sympathetic officers, many said security personnel were dismissive or accused the missing women, without evidence, of drug use or running away with friends.
Some officers asked families of returned victims to lie about what happened.
Walaa Ismail, 24, said she was kidnapped near her university in the central city of Homs in May. Her captors demanded $15,000 but released her after activists publicized her disappearance online and her widowed mother told them she could not pay. Ismail described her captors as criminals motivated by money rather than sectarianism.
After her return, she said security officers asked her family to say she had been visiting a friend, but her mother refused: “I said no, and I posted a video to tell everyone what happened.”
A police investigator, speaking anonymously, said he worked on 10 alleged cases and found nine to be “fake.” Only one was real, and the woman returned pregnant. “It destroyed her life,” he said.
Many returned victims said they suffer from psychological trauma affecting their education, jobs, and sleep. Some separated from their husbands, and a few fled Syria fearing their kidnappers might return.
A 19-year-old girl said she was kidnapped for several days last summer by a foreign jihadist. Since then, she said she has become depressed, lost her love for sports, and abandoned plans to attend university. “I used to go out with my friends, but now I don’t want to leave the room. I’m afraid of the people around me.”
The 16-year-old girl who returned pregnant said her captors gave her sleeping pills and allowed strangers to rape her. She was released for about $2,500 and returned to her family, who are poor farmers.
Abortion is illegal in Syria, even in cases of rape. She chose to keep the baby anyway.
“This is my child,” she said. “What did it do wrong?” In February, she gave birth to a baby girl.
