Brazil closes its embassy in Damascus due to violence

The Brazilian government has decided to close its embassy in Damascus. The ambassador, Edgard Casciano, and embassy staff have been ordered to leave the city. They will travel to Beirut by road where Brazil-Syria affairs will be handled in the future.

Because of security concerns, diplomats have not informed Agência Brasil of the exact time that the embassy will be closed or when the diplomatic convoy taking the ambassador and embassy staff to Beirut will leave.

Yesterday, ambassador Casciano said things were so bad in Damascus that even the Syrians were afraid. “You simply cannot step outside there is so much shooting going on. It is a very problematic situation,” he declared. “Helicopters are flying overhead all the time and there are big explosions caused by heavy weaponry.”

Casciano has been in Syria serving as Brazilian ambassador for four years. In an interview yesterday, he called the environment in the capital, Damacus, very tense. He added there was no way to ensure the safety of foreign embassies and that he had ordered the Brazilian embassy to be closed as of yesterday (July 19), telling employees to stay home. “We thought about bringing in security guards from Brazil but as the airport is closed we had to shelve that idea,” the ambassador explained.

It is estimated that there are 3,000 Brazilians living in Syria, most of them in and around the capital, although there is a Brazilian community in the Alawite region (in settlements known as Latakia and Tartous, on the coast). In the same region there is another group who are Christian.

The exact number of Brazilians in Syria is not known because many of them left the country over the last year and a half since the uprising against the Assad government began.