THE executions came without warning. Armed men moved through neighbourhoods in Tartus, Latakia, and Hama, knocking on doors in the dead of night. The question was simple: “Are you Alawite or Sunni?” The answer determined who would live and who would die.
By the time the sun rose over Syria’s coastal regions, 111 civilians lay dead—entire families erased, children executed alongside their parents, and the wounded killed in their hospital beds. And officials believe the true death toll is much higher.
“They made us watch,” one survivor whispered, eyes vacant with shock. “They shot my husband in front of our children. They made us watch.”
The coastal governorates of Syria, once relatively stable during the country’s long civil conflict, have descended into sectarian bloodshed. Predominantly Alawite communities have been specifically targeted in what UN human rights officials describe as “extremely disturbing” attacks. According to testimonies collected by the UN Human Rights Office, armed individuals—some allegedly supporting the caretaker authorities’ security forces and others associated with the former government—conducted house-by-house raids with deadly precision.
Between March 6 and 7, the violence escalated further when armed individuals reportedly affiliated with the former government’s security forces stormed several hospitals in Latakia, Tartus, and Baniyas. The resulting clashes with security forces left dozens of civilians dead, including patients, doctors, and medical students. The hospitals themselves sustained significant damage.
“We were treating the wounded when they came,” recounted a surviving medical student, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. “They didn’t care who was who—they fired at everyone. Doctors fell while operating. Patients were killed in their beds.”
The chaos spawned additional criminal activity, with widespread looting of homes and shops by opportunistic individuals. Many terrified civilians have fled to rural areas, while others reportedly sought protection at a Russian-controlled airbase in the region.
Though the caretaker authorities announced the end of security operations on March 10, intermittent clashes continue to be reported across the coastal areas. Meanwhile, a dangerous tide of hate speech and misinformation—both online and offline—threatens to further inflame tensions in an already fractured society.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called for accountability, welcoming the caretaker authorities’ announcement of an independent investigation committee while urging that all investigations be “prompt, thorough, independent and impartial.”
“To ensure such harrowing violations and abuses are not repeated,” UN spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan emphasized, “it is imperative that the process of vetting and integrating armed factions into Syria’s military structures is in line with the country’s obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.”
For the survivors, however, justice seems a distant prospect as they mourn their dead and wonder who might come knocking at their door next.
