World Tour: Violence erupts in Syria

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

ONIZE ODUAH: Syria unrest — Today’s World Tour begins in Syria, where violence over the weekend left more than a thousand people dead. 

Clashes erupted in the coastal region last week between the Sunni Muslim Syrian security forces and loyalists of the ousted former President Bashar Assad, many of them members of the minority Alawite sect. 

Fighting and revenge killings grew since then, stoking sectarian violence. The victims also included Christians. 

The violence is the worst since the overthrow of Assad’s government in December. 

Nazem Naji is a 70-year-old resident in Syria’s capital of Damascus. 

NAJI: [ARABIC] We should join together and save this country and this victory that happened. We reached something big and we should maintain it and love each other. This country is for everyone.

He called for people to work together to save the country. 

Meanwhile, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has pledged to respond to the violence.

AL-SHARAA: [ARABIC] No one will be above the law and anyone whose hands are stained with the blood of Syrians will face justice sooner rather than later.

He says those responsible will face justice. 

Australia anti-Semitic plot — Next to Australia, where authorities have confirmed that a suspected plot to target a synagogue with explosives was not what it appeared. 

Authorities in January found a caravan loaded with explosives with the address of a synagogue in Sydney. 

But on Monday, police said it was a diversion by an organized crime network. 

David Hudson is the New South Wales deputy police commissioner. 

HUDSON: It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity.

Police are yet to make any arrests. But the country has seen a surge in anti-Semitic attacks since Hamas invaded Israel in October 2023. The attacks mostly target synagogues, schools, and private property.

AUDIO: [Pro-life protesters]

Poland abortion center — In Poland, pro-life demonstrators protested the opening of the country’s first stationary abortion center in the city of Warsaw.

The new center opened right across the city’s parliament building.

Assisting in an abortion is illegal in Poland and punishable by up to three years in jail, but women also bypass any legal responsibility if they carry out the abortions themselves. 

Justyna Wydrzynska—one of the center’s founders—said women can order pills in advance and come into the center to have an abortion. 

AUDIO: [Protesters, crying baby sound] 

Outside the building, protesters prayed together and also played audio of a crying baby. 

Laws in the majority Catholic nation shield babies from abortion—except in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s health or life.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Romania protests — We close today in southeast Europe where a far-right independent candidate in Romania is challenging his exclusion from an upcoming presidential poll. 

Romania’s central electoral bureau on Sunday rejected Calin Georgescu’s candidacy, saying it failed to meet the conditions of legality, and also breached the obligations to defend democracy. 

Georgescu claimed an unexpected victory during the first round of voting back in November. But the constitutional court annulled the vote over claims of Russian interference. 

He is leading in polls ahead of the May re-run election. 

This protester joined others to support Georgescu in the capital of Bucharest. 

PROTESTER: [ROMANIAN] It's no longer about who is running, but about democracy, which has been trampled on from all sides. Somehow, people are being shown directly in their faces that we live in a great dictatorship. I mean, where are the human rights?

She says the protest is now about a fight for democracy, adding that Georgescu’s exclusion shows that they now live in a dictatorship. 

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

EICHER: WORLD has more reporting on Syria … including the stories of Christians there affected by the fighting. We have a link to the story in today’s transcript.

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