Syria has witnessed an alarming wave of kidnappings of young women from the Alawite community since December, when the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Syria's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Cradle reported on Wednesday that evidence suggests that these women, primarily from the Alawite religious sect, have been abducted by armed militants affiliated with the new Syrian government and taken to live as sex slaves in Idlib governorate, which is the traditional HTS stronghold.

The report said the mass kidnapping and enslavement of Alawite women is similar to the enslavement of the thousands of Yezidi women by Daesh during the 2014 genocide in Sinjar, Iraq.

Hiba Ezzedeen, a Syrian activist from Idlib, in a Facebook post described her encounter with a woman who was captured and taken to the governorate as a sex slave during the massacre of Alawites in the country's coastal areas on March 7.

"During my last visit to Idlib, I was at a place with my brother when I saw a man I knew with a woman I had never met before," Ezzedeen explained in the now-deleted Facebook post.

"This man had been married multiple times before and is believed to currently have three wives. What caught my attention was the woman’s appearance—specifically, it was clear she didn’t know how to wear a hijab properly, and her scarf was draped haphazardly," she added.

Ezzedeen learned that the woman was from the coastal areas where the March 7 massacres took place.

"This man had brought her to the village and married her, with no further details available. No one knew what had happened to her or how she got there, and naturally, the young woman was too afraid to speak," Ezzedeen added.

Ezzedeen made further inquiries about the abduction of Alawite women from the coast.

"Unfortunately, many confirmed that this had indeed happened, and not just by one faction. Based on what friends said, accusations point to factions of the National Army and some foreign fighters, with varying motives," she reported.

Syria's new HTS-led forces have incorporated armed extremist groups, including factions of the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), into their ranks since coming to power in Damascus.

Many SNA commanders and foreign extremists have been appointed to top positions in the Syrian Ministry of Defense.

Mostly former SNA and foreign fighter factions are believed to have carried out the 7 March massacres.

Militants went door to door in Alawite villages and neighborhoods, and executing all military-aged men they could find, and at times killing women, children, and the elderly.

Ezzedeen concluded her post by stating, "This is a serious issue that cannot be ignored. The government must immediately reveal the fate of these women and release them."

Ezzedeen's courageous reporting exposed the fate of many young women from minority communities who had mysteriously disappeared in recent months.

The HTS-appointed governor of Idlib issued an order for Ezzedeen's arrest, claiming she had “insulted the hijab."

The HTS militant group seized control of Damascus on December 8 last year, culminating a swift offensive that had begun in the northwestern province of Aleppo just two weeks earlier and ultimately brought an end to Assad’s 24-year rule.