HOMS COUNTRYSIDE — Former teacher Abdallah Ibrahim harvested his family's olive trees in the Homs countryside last October for the first time since the start of Syria's civil war. Residents of the Christian village in northern Syria had not gathered olives for nearly 14 years because of the conflict.

Much of the village was in ruins. Ibrahim had planted many of the olive trees himself decades earlier, when he was a teenager. He said the harvested olives would be used at his family's table in the future.

Ibrahim said he feared that sectarian violence, which has continued to affect Syria after the end of the civil war, would soon reach his Christian community again. The village is located in the Homs countryside, a region that experienced years of fighting during the conflict that left much of the area damaged. Residents had been unable to conduct the annual olive harvest throughout the nearly 14-year span of the war, according to accounts from the village.

Ibrahim, who planted the trees as a teenager decades before the war, returned to tend them after the civil war ended. The olive harvest, a traditional activity in Syrian rural communities, had been suspended for the duration of the conflict. He said the olives gathered last October would supply his family's household going forward.

His concern about sectarian violence reflects the uncertainty facing minority communities in Syria following the end of the civil war. Ibrahim said he worried that instability could once again disrupt life in the Christian village where he and his family have roots.