Alawites in Lebanon (A Community Surrounded by Terror, Violence, and Retaliation)

Imagine just for a couple of seconds that your everyday life is burdened with horror and violence! How is the feeling? Yes, it is incredibly unbelievable. But, we do have the same thing in today’s real world!! In Tripoli, some 60,000 Alawites survive in Jabal Mohsen, a district built on the mountain in the center of the city. It is one of the poorest and most isolated areas in the whole of Lebanon. In this district, there is no contact with the rest of the city for fear of retaliations. The Alawites of Jabal Mohsen are mostly loyal supporters of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The conflict in Syria has led to an escalation of the armed conflict between the Islamic extremists from Bab el-Tebaneh, a neighboring district, and the Alawites from Jabal Mohsen.
During the battles between Jabal Mohsen and Bab el Tabaneh the area remains closed and there is no option to move in or out. In Jabal Mohsen, there are no hospitals, and during the conflict, most of the injured must wait in the small clinic of the quarter until the Red Cross take them out to a safe area with the help of the Lebanese Army. The remainders of the conflict are visible on every house in Jabal Mohsen, especially in the zone that delimits the border between the two neighbourhoods. The lives of the inhabitants of the front line are conditioned by the state of the conflict: they live in fear of losing their houses, but also their lives by Islamic extremists and Takfiris from both al-Nusra Front and ISIL.
In spite of everything, the Alawites of Jabal Mohsen are still Lebanese, like their neighbors and enemies, the Islamic extremists of the Bab el-Tebaneh district; and despite everything, life still goes on in Jabal Mohsen.


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