AL-SOMORIYEH/MOADAMIYAT AL-SHAM —  Nermin Ali (a pseudonym), 41, stood with a group of around 20 women and girls on a wide avenue in al-Somoriyeh—an informal, Alawite-majority neighborhood in the western suburbs of Damascus—on August 27. For months, the fate of their community had been up in the air. Now, a violent eviction raid was underway. “We want our homes, we want our homes,” they chanted, clapping. 

Suddenly, an armed man dressed in the black uniform of Syria’s General Security Service approached the group, shoving one woman to the ground. “Another woman was also shoved with his gun and fell, hitting the back of her head and losing consciousness. She was brought to the hospital,” Ali recalled. 

The August 27 incident was captured in a video, in which Ali appears. The Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-Sy told Syria Direct the video was verified. 

Shortly before the protest, an armed group stormed al-Somoriyeh, claiming to act on government orders, and ordered its residents to leave within 72 hours. Men from the neighborhood—including the mukhtar—were beaten and detained. When Ali and others protested, they were met with violence. 

The armed man who confronted the group “put the gun next to my face and started firing into the air” to intimidate and disperse the protesters, Ali recalled. “I said to him, ‘if you want to kill me, kill me, it doesn’t make a difference to me anymore.’”

Nermin Ali, 48, shows an August 27 video of an armed man assaulting a woman at a protest in al-Somoriyeh she participated in, 9/4/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

By the day’s end, many houses in al-Somoriyeh had been ransacked and plundered, including Ali’s. She said gold worth around $2,000 and SYP 1.5 million ($150) in cash were stolen when the gunmen searched her home. 

The men—identified only as “Abu Hudhayfa’s group”—gave residents an “official” document ordering them to vacate their homes, but it contained no official signature or date. In the days since, Syrian authorities have said the future of the informal housing will be settled in accordance with the law and judicial decisions. Still, many residents have fled.

Ali’s story is one piece of a much more complex history, in which there are grievances on both sides: between the residents of Moadamiyat al-Sham, who once owned the land al-Somoriyeh is built on, and residents of the informal settlement. It is a story that has played out in multiple communities across Syria. 

Starting in the 1950s—and peaking under Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s—the Syrian state expropriated vast tracts of land from Moadamiyat al-Sham, a Sunni town in the western suburbs of Damascus. The government built military housing on the expropriated lands, around which informal housing propagated, becoming al-Somoriyeh.

Entire families from Moadamiyat al-Sham lost their livelihoods, as they lost access to their agricultural lands. Today, their grandchildren are on a mission to get those lands back, even after generations of Alawite families have made al-Somoriyeh their home.

‘We paid for our homes’

Around a week after the August 27 raid, a tense calm reigned in al-Somoriyeh. Its small, makeshift homes—some ransacked, with belongings spilled into the streets—sat close together, resembling a built-up refugee camp. Demolished shops lined the eastern entrance to the neighborhood, which residents say the new government’s forces destroyed in the weeks after the Assad regime fell last December. 

According to the Moadamiyat al-Sham municipality—which includes al-Somoriyeh—the informal neighborhood had 15,000 residents in 2010. After the regime fell, all but around a third fled, municipal president Ahmad Idris told Syria Direct. 

Those who fled feared that opposition factions would persecute them for their ties—real or perceived—to the Syrian regime as members of the Alawite community to which ousted president Bashar al-Assad belongs. Many were members of the military and lived in nearby barracks, while their families lived in the adjacent slums. 

Ali’s husband was detained in February and held for 47 days without formal charges, accused of participating in massacres in the nearby town of Jdeidat Artouz during the war, and was eventually released in exchange for a bribe of around $1,000, she said. She maintains that he worked in the bakery of the nearby military barracks, and was not involved in the killings.

The remains of an electronics repair store that was burglarized by members of an armed group claiming to be acting on government orders in al-Somoriyeh on August 27, 4/9/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

Those who remain in al-Somoriyeh say they have the right to remain in their homes. “We paid for our homes with our blood, we didn’t take them like that [for nothing],” Ali said. She has been renting her home in al-Somoriyeh for 17 years and has nowhere left to go. 

While she legally owns an apartment in neighboring Moadamiyat al-Sham and possesses a title deed (tabu) for it, she says someone from the security forces moved in and occupied it on the day the regime fell. When she went to confront him, he threatened her and said “you and your family are worth a bullet,” she recalled.

Marwan Hamza (a pseudonym), 61, who runs a corner store in al-Somoriyeh, told Syria Direct he bought his home in the neighborhood from a previous owner in 2006 for SYP 80,000 ($1,600 at the time). Unlike most residents, he possesses a court ruling that he says proves ownership of his home. 

For her part, Ali has a rental agreement with the owner of her home to whom it belongs by court ruling, according to documents reviewed by Syria Direct. 

Marwan Hamza’s court ruling that he claims proves he owns his home in al-Somoriyeh, 4/9/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

“We are not denying the rights of Moadamiyat al-Sham, but we came and bought here because it was cheap and we were unable to buy in the city [of Damascus]. We don’t know what the problems are with the people of Moadamiyat al-Sham, if they are lands belonging to the governorate,” Hamza added. “Everything around Damascus is owned by the state, and everyone built in an informal way.”

Informal settlements like al-Somoriyeh exist across Damascus and the rest of the country, some built atop state-owned land and others on private property, such as farmland. The future of these settlements is among the most contentious property rights issues facing the country’s nascent government, which has yet to chart a course to resolve them. 

‘Rightful owners’

Those in al-Somoriyeh who hold proof of residency—such as electricity bills—will be protected from eviction for now, until a committee composed of notables from Moadamiyat al-Sham, al-Somoriyeh, and lawyers settle the property dispute, municipal president Ahmad Idris told Syria Direct. 

“The Syrian state is committed to resolving these issues with justice and transparency, far from displacement and forced eviction,” Damascus Governor Maher Marwan Idlibi said in a written statement on September 3. It remains unclear who issued the purported evacuation order in August.

“Properties must be returned to their rightful owners and disputes must be resolved through the courts; we, the people of Moadamiyat al-Sham, are oppressed,” Idris said. His own family, like many in the town, had vast tracts of land taken by the state in 1985.

Landowners from Moadamiyat al-Sham with property in al-Somoriyeh have filed a collective complaint to the provincial council of Damascus demanding the return of their properties, Idris said. Around 85 percent of the lands of Moadamiyat al-Sham, which includes the neighborhood of al-Somoriyeh, were seized by the state, he said.

“The rightful owners have the right to demand compensation, rent or to evacuate the properties,” he added.

Some from Moadamiyat al-Sham have ruled out renting to al-Somoriyeh’s residents—who they say are complicit in the previous regime’s atrocities—in the event they recover their property. During Assad’s rule, Moadamiyat al-Sham was subject to a four-year siege and targeted by a chemical weapons attack in 2013.

“The people of al-Somoriyeh are complicit and they’re the reason for the violations that took place in Moadamiyat al-Sham and across the entire countryside,” Ahmad Muhammed Sawwan, 45, said. “They were all collaborating with the former deposed regime, all of them were serving in the prisons and [security] branches, and most were stationed at checkpoints that killed people.”

In 2012, regime forces set every room of Sawwan’s house in Moadamiyat al-Sham on fire as punishment for his father’s opposition activities. Sawwan himself was arrested shortly thereafter for a week before escaping to Sudan, only to return to Syria in 2019. His 65-year-old mother and brother both survived the 2013 chemical weapons attack and lived through the siege. 

Ahmad Muhammadd Sawwan, 45, and his mother, Diaba Sawwan, 65, sit outside their home in Moadamiyat al-Sham, 4/9/2025, (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

Sawwan, whose ancestral lands in al-Somoriyeh were expropriated, told Syria Direct that he refuses to rent out homes to its current inhabitants. “Their homes should be torn down and rebuilt all over again, they’re not suitable to live in,” he said. “No one will accept to rent their land [to them].”

The Sawwan family’s lands underwent several rounds of expropriations over time, for which they were never compensated. In addition to those in al-Somoriyeh, they lost land in the surrounding hills. “We finished from Rifaat al-Assad and then came Maher al-Assad, who was even worse. He seized all of the hills,” Sawwan said.

Sawwan recalls the fields that his ancestors once tended, images of which he only has in his mind’s imagination as it was impossible for him to ever visit them. “We were afraid to even look at al-Somoriyeh—it was known for smuggling weapons, drugs.” 

“Before, all of Moadamiya used to farm, eat and drink from the hills, growing barley and wheat,” he added.

Ahmad Muhammed Sawwan, 45, shows his family’s title deed (tabu) for their expropriated land in al-Somoriyeh, 4/9/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

Conflict resolution

“The law naturally sides with the residents of Moadamiyat al-Sham because their ownership is established in the real estate registry, whereas very few residents of al-Somoriyeh have a court ruling guaranteeing their rights,” lawyer Aref al-Shaal, who specializes in housing, land and property rights, told Syria Direct.

Lawyer Ali Barakat, who is from al-Somoriyeh, said residents hold court rulings and “have the right to remain in their homes.” Court rulings “are the second degree of property ownership after the tabu,” or title deed, he explained. A tabu is issued by the real estate registry. 

“If anyone is entitled to remove us from our homes, it is the state, since it is the entity with ownership. However, the state will provide compensation depending on the case,” Barakat added.

The case of al-Somoriyeh cannot be addressed without resolving cases of expropriation across Syria, which are present in all provinces, al-Shaal added. “The difference is that the al-Somoriyeh case took on a sectarian dimension.”

Al-Shaal recommends the governor appoint a government body to study cases of expropriation, one that listens to all stakeholders and proposes policies, “ensuring a balance between the rights of the state, owners, and occupants.”

In the meantime, the fate of the residents of al-Somoriyeh remains in limbo and the dreams of families of Moadimiyat al-Sham remain unfulfilled.