Targeted killings of the Alawite minorities in Syria's coastal region continued this week despite the embattled country’s new Islamist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s call for civil peace, a war observatory has found.
Mr Sharaa's forces and rival groups have killed at least 1,200 civilians, most of them Alawites, in Latakia, Tatous, Hama and Homs provinces, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The toll rose this week after 132 civilians were killed on Tuesday, the UK-based monitoring group said.
The violence was part of a widespread revenge operation targeting Alawites through mass killing, burning of homes, and forced displacement in absence of any international intervention to stop these massacres, the observatory said.
This past weekend's sectarian violence was among the worst bloodshed in the recent past of Syria, including the 14 years of civil war from which the country is now emerging. The attacks on the largely Alawite coastal region began following an ambush on the new regime’s forces by gunmen loyal to ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Sharaa has accused Mr Assad’s loyalists and "foreign powers" of trying to spark unrest in Syria, months after armed militias led by his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham wrested power and forced Mr Assad to flee to Russia.
Mr Assad, an Alawite himself, had filled his security agencies and paramilitaries with members of the sect. Some Sunnis blame the entire community for Mr Assad's brutal crackdowns, though Alawites say they also suffered under his rule.
Over the weekend, attackers rampaged through coastal provinces, killing entire families in their homes and streets, the UN human rights office said.
The killings went unabated despite Mr Sharaa, in a televised speech, vowing to hold the perpetuators of the violence accountable, including his allies if necessary. Col Hassan Abdel-Ghani, a defence ministry spokesperson, had claimed that security forces had taken control of the coastal region.
About 230 security personnel and 250 pro-Assad fighters have also been killed during the violence, BBC reported.
"In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families, including women, children and individuals hors de combat (French for incapable of fighting), were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular," UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said.
He said initial reports indicated that the perpetrators, who have not been identified, were both members of armed groups supporting Syria's interim government and Assad loyalists.
So far, the rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, the spokesperson said. "Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis."
The killings have forced hundreds of Syrian men, women and children to wade through a river to safety in neighbouring Lebanon. Nada Mohammed, who crossed into Lebanon on Sunday, told Reuters that her village was woken up by a phone call at dawn asking them to flee to safety.
"We saw seven people they slaughtered," she said.
Her daughter, Sally Rajab Abboud, described bearded foreigners with long hair who spoke formal Arabic rather than Syrian dialect. More than 350 families had made the same journey into Lebanon in recent days, according to local Lebanese authorities.
A Syrian fact-finding committee investigating sectarian killings said no one was above the law and it would seek the arrest and prosecution of any perpetrators.
Mr Sharaa told Reuters on Monday that he could not yet say whether forces from Syria's defence ministry, but acknowledged that some armed groups had entered without prior coordination with the ministry.
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