In December 2024, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime was toppled by a coalition of opposition groups, led by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militia, sparking a widespread wave of relief at the end of the decade-long civil war, signaling the return of more than a million Syrian refugees.
After being excluded from the country during the Assad years, the Independent international commission of inquiry on Syria – appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 to investigate and document human rights violations and abuses committed during the conflict – granted full access to the country by the transitional government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
In August, the Commission published a report on the wave of violence that engulfed coastal and west-central Syria starting in January 2025, which revealed that acts that may amount to war crimes, including murder and torture, were committed.
Massacres in Latakia and beyond
UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
Paulo Pinheiro, president of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
An estimated 1,400 men, women and children were killed in massacres in Latakia, Tartus and Hama governorates, including by members of government security forces.
Updated Third Committee of the General Assembly – which focuses on human rights issues – on Thursday, Mr. Pinheiro said that investigators had carried out on-site visits to Latakia and Tartous in June this year, and more recently to Suweyda and its surroundings.
Mr. Pinheiro indicated that his team continues to receive reports of extrajudicial executions, torture and ill-treatment, and forced displacement of Alawite civilians in Damascus and the western governorates.
In Sweida, more than 30 villages in Druze-majority areas were completely depopulated, looted and burned, and Commission investigators met with numerous families and witnesses who recounted the brutal killings of loved ones taken from their homes.
© ONUCHA/Ali Haj Suleiman
City of Sweida, during the armed conflict in July 2025
The stage is set for further violence
There is growing distrust, he explained, between the Druze and Bedouin communities and the interim government, which must hold those responsible for the killings to account and ensure that such acts do not happen again.
“The Commission is deeply concerned that the stage will be set for further violence if prompt action is not taken.“, warned Mr. Pinheiro. “Rebuilding trust will require dedicated efforts towards dialogue, inclusion and justice for all victims.”
The UN-appointed independent rights expert has raised growing concerns about violence and discrimination directed against women, citing multiple reports of women and girls abducted by unknown armed actors, some of whom were allegedly victims of sexual violence and forced marriages.
“In many cases, despite reporting their disappearance to local authorities, families report that no action has yet been taken to investigate or follow up. »
Mr. Pinheiro called on UN member states to halt Israel’s advance into southern Syria, which, he said, had seen civilians forcibly displaced and arbitrarily detained, as well as airstrikes that reportedly caused civilian casualties: “intervention by third states risks further inflaming the conflict and inflicting even greater suffering on the Syrian people.”
Noting recent steps taken by several states and the EU to ease sanctions against Syria, Mr. Pinheiro said such steps are welcome and urged member states to continue supporting the 2025 humanitarian appeal for the country, which is currently only 19 percent funded.
