Amnesty urges Syria to probe sectarian massacres as war crimes

Rights group Amnesty International on Thursday called on the Syrian government to ensure accountability for sectarian massacres targeting the Alawite minority last month, saying they may constitute war crimes.

Several days of violence starting on March 6 saw the worst sectarian bloodshed since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad, with massacres largely in the Alawite coastal heartland.

Many from Assad's Alawite minority have feared reprisals for his brutal rule.

Amnesty said that "the Syrian government must ensure that the perpetrators of a wave of mass killings targeting Alawite civilians in coastal areas  are held accountable."

The massacres "must be investigated as war crimes", it said in a statement.

Truth, justice and reparation are "crucial to ending cycles of atrocities", it added.

The United Nations human rights office has said that "perpetrators raided houses, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before proceeding to either kill or spare them accordingly", with men shot dead in front of their families.

Online footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, showed men in military garb shooting people at close range.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.

Amnesty's secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said: "Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores."

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those behind the "bloodshed of civilians" and has set up a fact-finding committee, which has yet to announce its results.

Amnesty said authorities must "ensure independent, effective investigations of these unlawful killings and other war crimes".

The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.

Callamard said evidence indicated that "government affiliated militias deliberately targeted" Alawite civilians "in gruesome reprisal attacks", with people killed "in cold blood".

"For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings," she said.

The Observatory has accused security forces and allied groups of participating in "field executions, forced displacement and burning of homes".

The violence has sent more than 21,000 fleeing to neighbouring Lebanon, the UN has said, with thousands more seeking refuge at a Russian air base on the Mediterranean coast.

Amnesty said the Syrian government must "take immediate steps to ensure that no person or group is targeted on the basis of their sect".

On Monday, the Observatory said 12 civilians, mostly Alawites, were killed in further incidents of apparent sectarian violence.