#CentralSyria | Homs: A Thousand Syrian Shia Families Face Forced Displacement as #STG Orders Demolition of Al-Mazra Village

On the morning of Monday, June 29, 2026, Homs Province vehicles and bulldozers, escorted by General Security militias, moved into Al-Mazra, a predominantly Shia village situated west of the city of Homs, and demolished 10 homes. The operation followed the deliberate cutoff of water and electricity to the village. Residents who remained were given 72 hours to leave.

A widely shared image of messages, allegedly distributed to General Security militia members and armed factions on Sunday, June 28, informed them of the need to clear the Al-Mazra’a and Al-Raqqa areas near the Al-Waer neighborhood in advance of their planned demolition on Monday, June 29.

The messages indicated that the operation was being carried out “on orders from Homs Province leadership.”

Local sources reported that the demolitions were accompanied by verbal abuse and threats from General Security militia members, and that residents and bystanders were prevented from filming the destruction. A delegation of villagers traveled to the Homs Province headquarters to seek intervention, but the governor, appointed by the transitional government, declined to receive them.

As a result of what sources are characterizing as a sectarian displacement campaign, the roughly 1,000 families who call Al-Mazra’a home now face the prospect of forced expulsion, and the timing of this demolition is particularly significant, coming just four days after the Shia commemoration of Ashura, one of the most sacred and solemn occasions in the Shia religious calendar.

The STG has offered justifications for demolition orders targeting Alawite neighborhoods around Damascus, citing construction on state-owned land or the absence of building permits. However, this rationale does not hold up against Syrian realities on the ground: a significant number of unlicensed and unauthorized neighborhoods in Damascus, Homs, and several other provinces belong to Sunni residents, yet demolition laws are not being enforced there. What many citizens see is the deliberate routing of sectarian displacement operations through a legal framework, using the appearance of regulatory enforcement to carry out what amounts to systematic demographic targeting.

https://syriaja.com/news/a-thousand-syrian-shia-families-face-forced-displacement-as-stg-orders-demolition-of-al-mazra-village/

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