UN Syria Commission urges accountability for coastal violence affecting minority communities News
Amgad Beblawi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UN Syria Commission urges accountability for coastal violence affecting minority communities

The UN Syria Commission of Inquiry on Thursday reported that the wave of violent attacks that engulfed coastal and western-central Syria in March 2025 may constitute war crimes, and urged accountability to restore public confidence in the authorities.

Evidence adduced in the report painted a harrowing picture of widespread massacres targeting Alawi communities, documenting crimes including murder, torture, and the desecration of corpses as well as large-scale severe internal displacement. Footage of civilians being subjected to degrading treatment and abuse was disseminated widely via social media. The violence was attributed to members of the interim government forces, local militias, “pro-former government fighters” (PFGFs), and unaffiliated individuals. The chair of the commission, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, stated: “The scale and brutality of the violence documented in our report is deeply disturbing. We call on the interim authorities to continue to pursue accountability for all perpetrators, regardless of affiliation or rank.”

Attacks indiscriminately targeted individuals from the Alawite minority, with men who were identified as members of the group separated from the women and children before being executed. Despite attempts by the interim government to halt the violence, members of factions that were recently integrated into the interim government’s forces apparently participated in the attacks. The large scale of violence led to overcrowding in hospitals and a depletion of medical resources. The report counted 1,400 slain, mostly civilians and the vast majority adult men. UNICEF also noted the deaths of vulnerable individuals such as children, the disabled and senior citizens.

Although the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime has sparked hopes for a safer Syria, new challenges threaten to push the country back into a state of insecurity. The targeted violence exposed the unresolved fractures of the Assad era. The European Union has warned against the spreading of disinformation about the conflict, which only serves to incite bigotry against susceptible minority groups.

Human rights groups have already urged the government to commence transparent investigations, and called for the president to publish all the findings from such investigations.

 

 

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