Syrian coastline violence constitutes war crimes – Amnesty International
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Amnesty International described on Thursday the recent violence along Syria’s coastline as “war crimes,” holding the Damascus authorities responsible for the bloodshed that unfolded in the region.
In a report, the organization stated that pro-government militias killed more than 100 people in the coastal city of Baniyas on March 8 and 9, 2025.
According to verified information obtained by Amnesty, at least 32 individuals were deliberately executed, with a particular focus on targeting members of the Alawite minority.
Eyewitnesses reported that armed assailants questioned victims about their sectarian identity, specifically asking if they were Alawites, before issuing threats or carrying out killings.
The report further revealed that authorities forced families of the victims to bury their loved ones in mass graves without conducting religious rites or public funerals, violating both the rights of the deceased and their relatives.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard condemned these executions, stating that they amount to “war crimes” and called for those responsible for the brutal massacre to be held accountable.
“Without justice, Syria risks falling back into a cycle of further atrocities and bloodshed,” Callamard warned, emphasizing the need for “independent and effective investigations” into these crimes.
She urged measures to prevent human rights violators from holding positions that could enable further abuses and stressed the importance of upholding victims’ rights to truth, justice, and compensation.
In recent days, activists on social media circulated an image—also shared by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR)—showing a child from Baniyas who was killed on the first day of Eid al-Fitr in Syria.
BBC’s verification team confirmed that the image is recent and had not been previously published during earlier conflicts in the country.
Meanwhile, the SOHR reported that 12 civilians, most of them Alawites, were killed on March 30 in central and western Syria by armed groups.
This attack follows weeks of escalating violence that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians—most of them from the Alawite minority—in western Syria.
The surge in violence, described as the deadliest since the fall of the Assad regime in December, has forced over 21,000 people to flee to neighboring Lebanon, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).