Entire families, including women and children, were killed in a wave of sectarian violence in Syria’s coastal region, as government forces targeted areas linked to an insurgency by supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday.
Mounting pressure is on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports from a war monitor indicated that hundreds of civilians were killed in villages with predominantly Alawite populations—Assad’s minority sect.
“In several deeply alarming cases, entire families—including women, children, and those no longer able to fight—were executed, with Alawite-majority towns and villages particularly affected,” U.N. human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using the French term hors de combat to describe non-combatants.
So far, the U.N. has confirmed 111 civilian deaths but believes the real toll is much higher, Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva. Among the documented victims, 90 were men, 18 were women, and three were children.
“Many of those killed appear to have been summarily executed on sectarian grounds,” Al-Kheetan said, citing survivor testimonies. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he added.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed the Syrian government’s decision to establish an accountability committee but stressed that investigations must be swift, thorough, independent, and impartial.