An eerie silence hangs over Arza, a mainly Alawite village in the rural countryside of Hama province in eastern Syria. All of its residents fled after armed men from neighbouring Sunni villages rampaged through here on Friday,

Alawites, a Shia sect, ruled Syria for decades under the Assads. Now, after Bashar al-Assad's fall, they face violence as sectarian tensions escalate in the war-torn country

Syria's fragile transition from decades of Assad family brutal rule has been greatly shaken with an outburst of sectarian retribution and killings, posing a serious challenge to the new leadership led by Ahmad Sharaa.