Syria (MNN) — More clashes broke out this week near Aleppo, Syria, between government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Aleppo was a hotbed of fighting last week, before the SDF abandoned two long-held Aleppo neighborhoods to government control.
Now, more civilians east of the city are fleeing a possible further escalation.
Nuna* with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says Syria will fragment into separate federations. “I don’t see a solution, unless with division. They cannot live together.”
Conflict with the Kurds is only one of many fires the new Syrian government has faced since coming to power in December 2024. Massacres took place last year among Alawite and Druze communities, causing distrust of the administration to skyrocket.
“This is a religious war. More than a religious and ethnic war, more than just the land or dominion. They’re fighting against each other because of beliefs,” says Nuna. “How can you topple that? How can you minimize that and say, ‘It’s okay. Just become friends again and make an alliance again’?”
Yet Nuna says the clashes between different groups of Muslims (as well as non-Islamic faiths such as the Druze) are doing something else: They are opening people to the gospel.
Syrian citizens celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, December 2024 (Photo courtesy of Shvan Hark via Unsplash)
“People are disillusioned with Islam. They’re looking for the true truth, if I can say it this way — the real truth,” she says. “So many people are coming to the Lord.”
Media is helping to share the gospel with people in Syria. “It’s a difficult process [for a person to become a Christian], because the families are not supportive. They face persecutio,” says Nuna. “But reaching out on media and responding to [media-based] prompts is something that they can do without being persecuted by their own family.”
Pray for Syrians trapped in poverty. Nuna says three or four people in a household have to work to pay rent and cover basic necessities.
Pray also for many more people to encounter the light and peace of Christ in Syria’s turmoil. Nuna describes the national situation as “a war within each person.”
“Each person is afraid and is watching carefully to see what’s next,” she says. People wonder whether they can stay in Syria and raise their families, or if they should leave. “I understand them, really, when I talk to them and I see the way they’re living. I understand the threats, I understand the fear, I understand the anguish. We have no solution. We [at Triumphant Mercy] just say, ‘Let’s wait and see.’ We cannot say anything else.”
Aleppo, Syria in 2017 (Stock photo courtesy of Aladdin Hammami via Unsplash)
*Pseudonym
Header photo of Aleppo, Syria is a stock photo courtesy of Ahmad Sofi via Unsplash.
