Every August, Syrian architect Fayyad Salem escapes the heat in Damascus by heading to the mountain town of Marmarita, in the west of the country. When he embarked on the two-hour drive this week, his brother-in-law insisted on going with him.
“He thought it would be safer because of the highway robberies and kidnapping,” Mr Salem said. “We are both unarmed and his presence would not help.”
When the two men reached Marmarita, it was empty. Thousands of tourists and people who owned second homes in the town continued to travel there during the civil war, when security personnel at regime roadblocks extorted passengers, but the road was considered relatively safe.
“Marmarita is dead. No one goes there any more. They are afraid to be on that road,” Mr Salem said.
Nine months after former president Bashar Al Assad was deposed, rising crime has posed a challenge to a drive by the new government to portray Syria as ready for investment and encourage the return of the country's diaspora.
Since the start of this year, 254 people have been killed for apparently non-political reasons across the country, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Clashes this year have also led to the deaths of Alawites, Druze and Bedouin. Displacement and a lack of full-year data makes it difficult to compare the statistics to previous levels.
The observatory said the 254 reported killed this year included 40 women and 14 children. The largest proportion of the deaths occurred in the southern province of Deraa, where 52 lost their lives. It found that 41 were killed in Damascus and the surrounding areas, while 18 died in northern Aleppo province. Seventeen people were killed in the coastal province of Latakia, 28 died in Hama and 18 were killed in Homs.
During the civil war, the Assad regime carried out indiscriminate bombing campaigns on rebel cities and towns, and tortured and killed its opponents. Passing through its security roadblocks involved paying bribes, while protection rackets in big cities were often formed from within the system.
Amid persistent instability in Syria, cases of armed robbery, kidnappings and car theft have become common, business owners said. “A Beretta with an 18-round magazine is on me all the time,” said an Aleppo merchant who has been making regular trips to Damascus to expand his retail businesses.
In Maliki, the most affluent district of the capital, actress Diala Al Wadi was found dead in her apartment on Sunday. Residents said her apartment had been burgled. Within 24 hours, security forces arrested a man suspected of killing her, as well as detaining her housekeeper in connection with the crime.
Justice Minister Mazhar Al Wais said the state would punish those involved “as a warning to anyone who dares violate innocent lives”. A similar case in Maliki last month has not yet been solved. Amal Al Bustani, a doctor living in the area, was killed in her home, along with her housemaid.
“Going into homes and killing their owners and robbing them used to be unheard of in Maliki,” said Ramez Alaas, a contractor who lives in the neighbourhood. Under the former regime, secret police were posted in Maliki because Mr Al Assad lived there, as had his father, Hafez.
A commander in the Damascus police force acknowledged that crime “is a problem” but said authorities planned to install security cameras and had already sent more officers to catch “everything from traffic violations to public safety threats”.
He said the size of the force had been increased, having faced a severe shortfall when the former regime fell and members of its security forces fled.
In Aleppo, the country’s business capital, the authorities have been installing cameras after a wave of kidnappings in which workers and managers of factories on the edge of the city were held for ransom.
Aleppo remains a close-knit society and more criminals appear to be apprehended there than in Damascus, but economic malaise and an influx of migrants from neighbouring Idlib has kept lawlessness rife, according to a textile factory owner in Aleppo.
“It is understandable that it will take time to establish law and order, but people are becoming fed up,” the industrialist said. “A replica of the old system is developing – gangs close to the regime who are untouchable.”
