Rights group: Syria regime committed 50 sectarian massacres

Syrians look for survivors after the Assad regime carried out air strikes in Eastern Ghouta, Syria on 27 February 2018 [Diaa Al Din Samout/Anadolu Agency]

The Syrian regime committed no less than 50 massacres of a sectarian nature from March 2011 to 15 February 2018 killed nearly 3,100 people, a new report has revealed.

In its publication the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that of those killed, 3,028 were civilians including 531 children and 472 women.

The first two years of the popular uprising saw the greatest portion of sectarian-cleansing massacres, which lasted until June 2013, according to the report.

“The Syrian regime did not only recruit and compose Alawite-originated militias, but also recalled Iranian militias to fuel a Sunni-Alawite-Shia conflict that takes the attention away from the primary conflict between a popular uprising and a family tyranny that established for years a rule of oppression and terrorism,” it explained.

Homs witnessed the highest number of sectarian massacres, the report continued, with 22 such attacks killing 1,040 individuals including 209 children and 200 women.

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