The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that the Assad regime and its allied foreign militias have committed at least 50 sectarian massacres in Syria since 2011.
In a report issued on Thursday, the monitoring group said that well over 3,028 people, including 531 children and 472 women, have been killed in sectarian driven massacres by regime forces and their allied militias since the start of the Syrian revolution.
The report indicated that 1,040 people, including 209 children, 200 women and 10 fighters of the Free Syrian Army were killed in 22 massacres in the province of Homs. It also said that 197 civilians, including 21 children and 20 women were killed in eight massacres in Hama province.
According to the report, regime forces committed eight massacres in Aleppo claiming the lives of 416 people, including five opposition fighters, 63 children and 34 women. It noted that 35 civilians were killed in two massacres in the province of Idlib, including seven children and eight women.
The Network said that the Assad regime forces committed five massacres in Rural Damascus claiming the lives of 686 people, including 120 children, 113 women and 55 rebel fighters. It also said that regime forces and their allies carried out two massacres in Dara’a province claiming the lives of 59 civilians, including six children and 10 women.
The monitoring group went on to say that 192 civilians, including seven children and 12 women, were killed in one massacre by the regime forces in the neighborhoods Al-Jura and Al-Qazzour in Deir Ezzor city. It added that 473 civilians, including 98 children and 75 women, were killed in two massacres by regime forces in Tartous province.
The report was published on the anniversary of the massacre that pro-Assad militia committed in the village of Hasawiya in rural Homs on January 15, 2013. Local and foreign sectarian militias stormed the village and went on a killing spree, killing civilians with gunfire, bayonets and machetes in retaliation for the killing of a pro-regime militant in rural Homs.
The Network pointed out that the Assad regime seeks through these massacres to make the conflict in Syria look as a sectarian one and divert the world’s attention from the true nature of the conflict in Syria. It stressed that the conflict is between people with rightful demands and an authoritarian authority. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
