Syria's al-Sharaa extends deadline for investigation into coastal killings
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has extended the deadline for a committee to produce a report into the killings of hundreds of civilians on the country's western coast last month.
Hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed in apparent retribution after fighting broke out between government forces and armed groups loyal to former President Bashar al-Assad, who belongs to the Alawite religious sect.
On March 9, al-Sharaa tasked a fact-finding committee with producing a report within 30 days that would help determine the perpetrators and hold them to account.
In a decree published late on Thursday, the Syrian president said the committee had requested more time to complete its work and that he would grant it a non-renewable three-month extension.
The sectarian violence prompted fears of a renewed civil war just months after al-Assad was toppled in December by opposition fighters led by al-Sharaa.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said in a preliminary report last month that 803 people were extrajudicially killed between March 6 and 10 in attacks that were primarily carried out in the Latakia, Tartous and Hama governorates.
At least 39 children and 49 women were among those killed, SNHR said.
In a report published on April 3, Amnesty International said its probe into the killings concluded that at least 32 of more than 100 people killed in Baniyas, a coastal town in Tartous governorate, were deliberately targeted on sectarian grounds.
Amnesty said witnesses told the rights group that 'armed men asked people if they were Alawite before threatening or killing them and, in some cases, appeared to blame them for violations committed by the former government.'
Diana Semaan, a Syria researcher at Amnesty, told the Reuters news agency that the fact-finding committee should be given 'adequate time, access and resources to carry out a thorough investigation'.
'What is crucial is that the work of the fact-finding committee is transparent and includes any new violations against minorities in the coastal area and other parts of Syria,' she said.
But others expressed concern, including Alawite residents of the coastal province of Latakia, where much of the violence took place.
Firas, a 43-year-old Alawite who only gave his first name out of fear of retribution, told Reuters that the extension was an attempt to 'stall and buy more time' and that he felt little hope the committee's work would lead to real accountability.
In a statement on Friday, the committee's spokesperson, Yasser Farhan, said it recorded 41 sites where killings took place, each forming the basis for a separate case and requiring more time to gather evidence.
He said some areas remained inaccessible due to time constraints, but that residents had cooperated, despite threats from pro-Assad remnants.
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