Back مجزرة حماة 1982 Arabic Həma qırğını Azerbaijani حماه قیرغینی AZB Massacre de Hama Catalan کۆمەڵکوژیی حەما CKB Kampene i Hama 1982 Danish Massaker von Hama German Masacre de Hama de febrero de 1982 Spanish کشتار ۱۹۸۲ حماة Persian Haman joukkomurha Finnish

1982 Hama massacre

Not to be confused with the 1981 Hama massacre or the 2012 Hama massacre.

35°7′35″N 36°45′7″E / 35.12639°N 36.75194°E / 35.12639; 36.75194

Hama massacre
Part of the Islamist uprising in Syria
LocationHama, Syria
Date2 February 1982 (1982-02-02) – 28 February 1982 (1982-02-28) (3 weeks and 5 days)
Attack type
Genocidal massacre, ethnic cleansing, sectarian violence
Deaths~25,000[1]–40,000 civilians killed[a]
~300–400 Muslim Brotherhood insurgents killed[5]
~15,000–17,000 civilians forcibly disappeared[2][4]
Victims~100,000 civilians deported
Perpetrators Syrian Arab Republic
Defenders Muslim Brotherhood
MotiveAnti-Sunni sentiment[6]

The Hama massacre[7] (Arabic: مجزرة حماة) occurred in February 1982 when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies paramilitary force, under the orders of President Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Ba'athist government.[8][2] The campaign that had begun in 1976 by Sunni Muslim groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, was brutally crushed in an anti-Sunni massacre[6] at Hama, carried out by the Syrian Arab Army and Alawite militias under the command of Major General Rifaat al-Assad.[9]

Prior to the start of operations, Hafez al-Assad issued orders to seal off Hama from the outside world; effectively imposing a media blackout, total shut down of communications, electricity and food supplies to the city for months.[10] Initial diplomatic reports from Western countries stated that 1,000 were killed.[11][12] Subsequent estimates vary, with the lower estimates reporting at least 10,000 deaths,[13] while others put the number at 20,000 (Robert Fisk)[8] or 40,000 (Syrian Human Rights Committee and SNHR).[2][3][4] The massacre remains the "single deadliest act" of violence perpetrated by an Arab state upon its own population in the history of the Modern Middle East.[14][15]

Nearly two-thirds of the city was destroyed in the Ba'athist military operation.[13][16] Robert Fisk, who was present at Hama during the events of the massacre, reported that indiscriminate bombing had razed much of the city to the ground and that the vast majority of the victims were civilians.[17] Patrick Seale, reporting in The Globe and Mail, described the operation as a "two-week orgy of killing, destruction and looting" which destroyed the city and killed a minimum of 25,000 inhabitants.[1]

The attack has been described as a "genocidal massacre"[18] which was motivated by sectarian animosities against the Sunni community of Hama.[b] Memory of the massacre remains an important aspect of Syrian culture and as a result, it evokes strong emotions amongst Syrians to the present day.[23][24][25] The Hama massacre was invoked by rebel leaders when the Assad Regime was driven out of the city following a successful rebel offensive in December 2024 that ultimately ended the rule of the Assad family over Syria, with rebel leaders saying they have “come to cleanse the wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years”[26]

  1. ^ a b Moss, Dana M. (2022). "2: Exit from Authoritarianism". The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism against Authoritarian Regimes. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. p. 58. doi:10.1017/9781108980036. ISBN 978-1-108-84553-3.
  2. ^ a b c d MEMRI 2002
  3. ^ a b Syrian Human Rights Committee, 2005
  4. ^ a b c "The 40th Anniversary of the 1982 Hama Massacre Coincides with Rifaat al Assad's Return to Bashar al Assad". SNHR. 28 February 2022. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022.
  5. ^ "Syria: Muslim Brotherhood Pressure Intensifies (U)" (PDF). DIA. May 1982. DDB-2630-32-82.
  6. ^ a b Bou Nassif, Hicham (2020). Endgames: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 126, 194. ISBN 978-1-108-84124-5.
  7. ^ Mikaberidze, Alexander (2013). "Hama Massacre (1982)". Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. p. 229. ISBN 978-1-59884-925-7.
  8. ^ a b Fisk 2010
  9. ^ Roberts, David (2015). "12: Hafiz al-Asad – II". The Ba'ath and the creation of modern Syria (Routledge Library Editions: Syria ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-415-83882-5.
  10. ^ Moss, Dana M. (2022). "2: Exit from Authoritarianism". The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism against Authoritarian Regimes. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 57, 58. doi:10.1017/9781108980036. ISBN 978-1-108-84553-3.
  11. ^ "Syria: Bloody Challenge to Assad". Time. 8 March 1982. Archived from the original on 15 October 2010.
  12. ^ JOHN KIFNER, Special to the New York Times (12 February 1982). "Syrian Troops Are Said To Battle Rebels Encircled in Central City". The New York Times. Hama (Syria); Syria. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
  13. ^ a b Atassi, Basma (2 February 2012). "Breaking the silence over Hama atrocities". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 3 November 2020.
  14. ^ Wright 2008: 243-244
  15. ^ Amos, Deborah (2 February 2012). "30 Years Later, Photos Emerge From Killings in Syria". NPR. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012.
  16. ^ "Switzerland issues arrest warrant for uncle of Syria's Assad". The National. 16 August 2023. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023.
  17. ^ Fisk, Robert. 1990. Pity the Nation. London: Touchstone, ISBN 0-671-74770-3.
  18. ^ "Genocide Watch Recommendations for Syria, Genocide and Mass Atrocities Alert: Syria" (PDF). migs.concordia.ca. February 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 June 2013.
  19. ^ Bou Nassif, Hicham (2020). Endgames: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 126, 194. ISBN 978-1-108-84124-5. In the wake of the tense period stretching from the Aleppo incident in 1979 to the Hama massacre in 1982, the regime accentuated the Alawitization of its coercive apparatus as its dependency on its sectarian base increased... regime violence against Sunnis did not begin in 2011, and was never restricted to the Muslim Brotherhood alone. Even Patrick Seale, who wrote an otherwise sympathetic biography of Hafez al-Asad, admits that thousands of Sunni civilians were slaughtered during the notorious Hama massacre in 1982 by the all-Alawi Defense Companies after the city fell. Human rights organizations have documented a series of other horrendous massacres of Sunnis that may not have reached Hama's level of violence, but were extremely bloody, nonetheless.
  20. ^ "Genocide Watch Recommendations for Syria, Genocide and Mass Atrocities Alert: Syria" (PDF). migs.concordia.ca. February 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 June 2013. Tensions and political strife have been an on-going theme in Syria due in large part to the opposing ideologies of the regime's ruling Alawite minority -- Baathist socialism- and the Sunni Muslim majority, which makes up three quarters of the country's population, and largely favors adherence to Islamic law. After the Hama Massacre of 1982- a 'scorched earth' operation that killed 20,000 people to combat an attempted Sunni Muslim uprising- the government became increasingly authoritarian, relying on repressive policies to maintain control.
  21. ^ Seale, Patrick (1989). Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. Los Angeles, US: University of California Press. pp. 332, 333. ISBN 0-520-06667-7. In Damascus there was a moment of something like panic when Hama rose. The regime itself shook... Behind the immediate contest lay the old multi-layered hostility between Islam and the Ba'th, between Sunni and 'Alawi, between town and country.
  22. ^ Mikaberidze, Alexander (2013). "Hama Massacre (1982)". Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. p. 229. ISBN 978-1-59884-925-7. The most infamous crackdown, however, occurred in early 1982, when al-Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on the defiant city of Hama, where the Sunni Muslim community continued to defy the regime..
  23. ^ Ismail, Salwa (2018). "4: Memories of Violence: Hama 1982". The Rule of Violence : Subjectivity, Memory and Government in Syria. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 131–158. doi:10.1017/9781139424721. ISBN 978-1-107-03218-7.
  24. ^ Batatu, Hanna (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Princeton University Press. p. 203. ISBN 0-691-00254-1.
  25. ^ Almasalkhi, Nadia (2024). "Internalized political repression: Legacies of authoritarianism in the U.S.-based Syrian diaspora during the Arab Spring". Sociological Forum. 39 (1): 79–93. doi:10.1111/socf.12980.
  26. ^ Hubbard, Ben (5 December 2024). "Syrian Rebels Storm Another Major City". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 December 2024.


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