Over the past two weeks, Syrian universities have witnessed a sharp escalation in sectarian tensions among students from different provinces. These tensions have reached the point of physical threats, assaults, and chants celebrating the “extermination” of religious minorities. As a result, many students from Sweida have left university dorms in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus, returning to their home province out of fear of renewed sectarian clashes, amid a noticeable lack of security enforcement in these student communities.
At Daraj, we managed to speak with several students from various Syrian universities, all of whom preferred to remain anonymous while sharing their accounts of the incidents they witnessed.
Have Universities Become Arenas for Intimidation?
The departure of Sweida students from university housing was not an individual decision, but a collective reaction to ongoing escalation. This mass departure was revealed in a video circulated on social media, showing dozens of students leaving the university dorms in Damascus.
The video sparked widespread controversy when it was shared, with some describing it as a “university exodus.” A number of students decided to leave on April 29, after being subjected to sectarian harassment that ranged from threats to verbal and physical confrontations, some of which resulted in injuries.
The incidents reportedly began in the university dorms in Homs, following the spread of a fabricated voice recording containing religious insults, allegedly made by a Druze sheikh from Sweida. This recording sparked a wave of agitation, manifesting in gatherings within the dorms where direct threats were made against Druze students, including chants like, “Any Druze we see in the dorms, we’ll slaughter them,” accompanied by religious slogans.
The situation escalated further when the dorm rooms of Druze students were stormed, and they were attacked with sticks and metal chains. One such victim, (M.S.), a third-year petroleum engineering student, suffered severe head injuries during a violent assault in his room, along with attacks on his roommates.
In Aleppo, a similar scenario unfolded. (A.G.), a third-year mechanical engineering student, was stabbed in the chest, arm, and back simply because he was Druze.
Several students reported receiving threats from the onset of the coastal region incidents, through emails, verbal altercations, and public gatherings where open hostility against al-Nusara (Christians) and non-Muslims was openly discussed. Daraj obtained a chat from one female student, in which she discussed the sudden change in the atmosphere with a friend. His response was, “It’s sectarian now. Any Druze we see in the dorms, we’ll kill them. If they don’t like it, they can go back to Sweida.”
According to their accounts, General Security intervened to disperse the clashes and protect students, but failed to control the ongoing demonstrations that continued to incite violence against Sweida students.
In Hama, Mary (a pseudonym), a dental student, shared her experience: “A demonstration broke out in Al-Assi Square on April 28th, with chants like, ‘Sunni, Sunni, we want to exterminate the Druze.’ The crowd then moved to the university dorms, joined by people from outside the campus, with a noticeable presence of weapons.
She continued, “The next day, we went to the faculty to finalize our transfer papers to Damascus and to gather our belongings. While doing so, two young men passed by me and said, ‘Glory to the one who honored us and humiliated you,’ even though I had never interacted with them throughout my years of study. After a full day of signing paperwork, we were shocked to find our requests rejected, supposedly due to a need for approval from Damascus, even though the final deadline for submission had passed the previous Wednesday.”
These testimonies come in response to the media’s denial of the harassment faced by Sweida students, which has contributed to the continued escalation of hostility rather than containing it.
Danger in University Dorms
For a long time, universities in Syria have served as spaces where young men and women from diverse backgrounds could come together. Despite the fragile infrastructure of these institutions, they have managed to mix Syrians from different regions, encouraging interaction. Some of the earliest protests against the regime erupted from these campuses, only to be brutally suppressed at the time. Now, as students return to these universities, there is growing concern that dormitories may become unsafe spaces, charged with fear and hostility.
Sarah (a pseudonym), a fourth-year pharmacy student living in the university dorms in Mazzeh, described her experience: “After the attacks on Druze students in Homs, our anxiety grew, but we continued attending classes. One Monday evening, while we were sitting with friends in the garden, we suddenly heard the sound of religious chants. Students began to gather quickly, repeating the slogans. As we made our way back to our rooms, a General Security vehicle entered the campus. On the way up to our rooms, I heard one of the gathered students say, ‘They’ll see their end, those pigs,’ clearly referring to us. At that moment, we started packing our belongings, preparing to leave.”
In the dorms of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (Hamak), a similar gathering took place. Accounts of the incident vary. Some say it started after a religious book was allegedly found near a trash bin, sparking accusations against a Druze student. Others insist this was just a rumor, deliberately spread to inflame tensions.
Another second-year media student added, “I saw students with headbands bearing the phrase ‘There is no god but Allah’ just as the chanting started to rise.”
In this context, accusations of being “agents of Israel” have become a convenient way to justify exclusion and hostility, creating an “imaginary enemy” that justifies targeting the Druze on multiple levels — from questioning their national loyalty to erasing their role in the Syrian revolution and desecrating their religious and historical symbols.
What happened to Sweida students is a continuation of harassment previously faced by students from the coastal regions. Delayed, ineffective responses have allowed sectarian behavior and public threats to spread. Despite expectations that the Ministry of Interior would issue a statement condemning these assaults, it instead released a message praising the “zeal” of the citizens involved, despite the clear aggressive overtones — raising questions about the neutrality of official institutions.
Media Distortion
After the mass departure of Sweida students from university housing, state media quickly produced reports denying that the students had been pressured to leave. Some journalistic activists claimed the evacuation was orchestrated by Druze elders in Sweida, a claim the students themselves denied, insisting they left to avoid provocations that were beginning to mirror the situations in Homs and Aleppo, after multiple attempts to defuse individual confrontations.
Portraying university campuses as safe spaces is not just a misrepresentation of reality, but a deliberate denial of the harassment faced by Sweida students. Today, some journalists continue to repeat this approach, ignoring the core issue rather than opening a dialogue to address it, instead reshaping the narrative to fit specific agendas.
In response to this dismissal, a group of Sweida students issued an official statement on May 8, rejecting sectarian strife and affirming their commitment to national unity. They emphasized that their decision to leave the universities was self-motivated and called for the criminalization of sectarian speech, the provision of necessary protection for students, and accountability for those who incite or commit violence.
A follow-up meeting was held on Saturday, May 10, in Damascus, bringing together a delegation from Sweida with the Ministers of Interior and Higher Education. The meeting resulted in a decision from the Ministry of Higher Education in Syria, which declared: “The publication or circulation of any content containing hate speech or sectarian incitement is strictly prohibited, with criminal penalties for violators.”
While this decision may be seen as a significant step toward addressing sectarian rhetoric, it reflects a shift from initial denial to eventual criminalization, highlighting the need for a deeper review of how educational and media institutions operate, to ensure a safer and more cohesive environment for all students.
A separate statement emerged, issued by a group calling themselves the “Student Movement,” advocating for “violence-free, weapon-free universities, aligned with justice, dignity, and freedom for all.” Their message carried the slogans “Thought, Solidarity, Equality.” The statement, written in a hopeful tone, did not reveal the names of its signatories, only identifying them as “students from Syrian universities.”
While such movements and statements are important at this stage, without tangible action on the ground and within university campuses, they risk becoming mere echoes in the void, particularly amid ongoing efforts to redefine university spaces — whether through religious initiatives or sectarian mobilization, as seen in recent events.
