The Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, requested national unity and peace on Sunday in the midst of a growing international reaction after the murder of Alauitas civilians in the worst violence since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
The head of the United Nations Rights, Volker Turk, said the murders “must cease immediately”, while the United Nations, the United States, the United States and other governments have condemned violence.
The presidency announced in Telegram that an “independent committee” had formed to “investigate violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them”, who would face the courts.
The clashes between the new security forces and the loyal of the old government exploded Thursday in the heart of the Alauita minority to which Assad belongs and since then has intensified in mass murders reported.
Speaking from a mosque in Damascus, Sharaa said: “We must preserve the national unity [and] Civil peace as much as possible and, in the case of God, we can live together in this country. “
The War Monitor of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported that 745 Alauitan civilians were killed in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.
The Observatory based in Great Britain said they were killed in “executions” carried out by security personnel or pro -government combatants and were followed by looting. The fight has also killed 125 members of the Security Forces and 148 Pro-Assad combatants, according to the Observatory, carrying the number of deaths to 1,018.
‘They gathered all men’
The Interior Ministry said on Sunday that government forces were carrying out “sweeping operations in Qadmous and the surrounding villages” in the province of Tartus to “pursue the remains of the demolished regime.”
State News Agency Fury He cited a source from the Ministry of Defense saying that there were violent confrontations in progress in Tanita, another Tartus village.
A AFP The photographer of the city of Latakia reported that a military convoy entered the Bannada neighborhood to look for homes.
In Baniyas, a city in the south, said Samir Haidar, 67 AFP Two of his brothers and his nephew were killed by armed groups that entered people’s houses, adding that there were “foreigners among them.”
“They gathered all the men on the roof and opened fire,” said Haidar.
The spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Hassan Abdul Ghani, said on Saturday that the security forces had “reimputed control” on the areas that had seen attacks from the Assad’s loyal ones.
The mass murders followed the clashes caused by the arrest of a suspect sought in a predominantly Alauito village, the observatory said, informing a “return to calm” in the coastal region on Saturday.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that medical facilities had been damaged in clashes and that the UN agency was “working to deliver medications and trauma supplies.”
The United States chief diplomat, Marco Rubio, said Syria “must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against the minority communities of Syria”, while the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Syrian authorities had “a responsibility to avoid more attacks.”
A source from the Ministry of Defense said Fury that the troops had blocked the roads that led to the coast to avoid “violations”, without specifying who was committing them. The Security Director of the Province of Latakia, Mustafa Kneifati, told the news agency: “We will not allow the sedition or orientation of any component of the Syrian people.”
Fear of reprisals
Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which directed Assad’s demolition in December, has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda and remains banned as a terrorist organization by many governments, including the United States.
Since the rebel victory, he has promised to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
The UN Turk said in a statement that there had been a “continuous peak in the hate speech both online and offline” in Syria and insisted that there was an “urgent need for an integral transition justice process.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, speaking with the German newspaper BildEurope said “must be woke up” and “stop granting legitimacy” to the new Syrian authorities that he insisted that they were still “jihadists.”
The Heartland of Alawite has taken over the fear of reprisals for the brutal rule of five decades of the Assad family, which included torture and generalized disappearances. Users of social networks have shared publications that document the murder of friends and family Alaws.
The observatory, which is based on a network of sources in Syria, reported multiple “massacres” in recent days, with women and children among the dead. The observatory and activists launched images that show dozens of stacked bodies outside a house. Other videos seemed to show men with military outfits shooting people at a short distance.
AFP He could not independently verify the images or accounts.
During a sermon on Sunday in Damascus, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioquía John X said the Christians were among those killed and asked Sharaa to “stop these massacres … and give a sense of security to all people in Syria, regardless of their sect.”
Aron Lund from Century International Think Tank said violence was “a bad omen.” He said that the new government lacks tools, incentives and the local support base to commit to discontent alautes.
“All they have is repressive power, and much of that … It is composed of jihadist fans who think that alauitas are enemies of God,” he said.
