Syrian youths flee conscription in Assad’s army for fear of their lives

Approaching his 18th birthday, Hamza, a merchant seaman from Syria, resigned himself to the fate awaiting him – a year and a half of compulsory military service.

Then last year, the uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad erupted. Troops dispatched by the government shot protesters and shelled opposition towns, killing thousands of civilians.

That altered the plan for Hamza, and for a growing number of young Syrians who are dodging conscription out of fear that military service will force them to kill their countrymen – or get killed themselves.

“I couldn’t go because the army is supposed to protect people, but all this army does is protect Assad,” said Hamza, now a wispy-bearded 19-year-old. He fled Syria this year to Tripoli, on Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast. Unable to work, he lives in hiding in a small flat with six other draft-dodgers.

Young Syrians have long avoided conscription by leaving, finding medical exemptions or using bribes to get their names off the lists. But anti-regime activists say the number has shot up during the 15-month conflict that the UN says has killed more than 9,000 people.

The extent of all this is hard to gauge, but in a hint that the army is under strain, Mr Assad issued an amnesty this month: He gave draft-dodgers inside the country 90 days to report for duty and 120 days to those abroad.

So far, the drop in conscripts has not lessened the state’s advantage over the opposition Free Syrian Army, largely because draftees are less committed than professional soldiers.

“The guys they call up now are not the guys who are going to stick by them,” said Joseph Holliday, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “Anyone they can get to fight for them loyally is already taking part.”

Others warn that efforts to replace draft-dodgers with regime loyalists will exacerbate sectarian strife. The opposition is mostly Sunni Muslim, while Mr Assad’s regime and security forces give power to the minority Alawites.

“Even if you support the government, you know the army is killing people, so given the choice to go or not, you won’t go,” said Rami Jarrah of the Activists News Association in Cairo.

Standard Syrian military service is 18 months for a man over 18 who is not an only son – only sons don’t serve.

Syrians born abroad can pay not to serve, but healthy, Syrian-born men living at home have no way out. Such was the fate of one 24-year-old from Banias, who graduated from university just before the uprising began. He bribed officials for another short-term student exemption but was told he had to serve.

“They said there was no way out of it because of what is going on, so I left the country,” he said. He added that his older relatives had served and in normal times, he would too.

“But now the army is killing its own people, so you have to refuse to go,” he said.