UN report: Pro-govt forces committed mass killings in Syria's coast

The Australian

15 hours ago

A UN human-rights commission probing sectarian violence in Syria found that pro-government forces committed systematic and widespread crimes against civilians earlier this year, but uncovered no evidence that the country's new government orchestrated the attacks.
The 66-page report, released Thursday by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, focused on violence against Syria's Alawite communities along the Mediterranean coast in March. The report extensively detailed abuses including murder, torture and abductions amid clashes that erupted between gunmen loyal to the deposed Assad regime and state security forces and militias allied with the government.
Hundreds of Alawites were killed as the violence swiftly descended into sectarian revenge attacks that forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. It was some of the worst violence since Assad was overthrown by a rebel coalition in December.
The U.N. report documented how armed groups went door to door in a number of locations to identify Alawite men. The men were separated from their families and then taken outside to be shot. Alawite women and children were also killed, the report found. Bodies were left in the streets for days, it said.
The commission identified several armed groups aligned with Syria's government whose fighters allegedly perpetrated many atrocities. It also found that atrocities were committed by pro-Assad forces and said more needed to be done to bring those responsible to justice.
'The scale and brutality of the violence documented in our report is deeply disturbing,' said Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, who chaired the commission. 'While dozens of alleged perpetrators of violations have reportedly since been arrested, the scale of the violence documented in our report warrants expanding such efforts.' Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hasan Al-Shaibani welcomed the report and said, 'We take serious note of the alleged violations committed during that period.' The United Nations-backed commission said it continued to receive reports of ongoing killings, abductions and arbitrary arrests of members of the Alawite community.
The Alawites are a religious minority to which former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs. They sometimes occupied prime slots in the deposed regime but also suffered subjugation by the Assads along with Syria's other ethnic and religious minorities.
Questions around the new Sunni Islamist government's involvement in the killings or its inability to protect the Alawites deepened a sense of mistrust among Syria's minorities at a time when the new leaders are struggling to consolidate their control and unify the country.
Sectarian clashes erupted last month in southern Syria between ethnic Druze and Arab Bedouin. Druze accused government forces of colluding with the Bedouin. The area remains tense.
Syria's government has vowed to hold perpetrators of sectarian violence accountable. Last month, a government investigatory committee reported that it had preliminarily found 298 people from military factions and 265 linked to armed militias with ties to the Assad regime who committed sectarian attacks.
On Thursday, the U.N. commission welcomed the government's actions but stressed that more needs to be done to bring justice and prevent future attacks.
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