Since Thursday, more than 1,000 people have been killed according to SOHR in bloody clashes between government forces and armed groups affiliated with the overthrown dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The clashes have mainly taken place in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean coast.
At least 745 of the killed, according to SOHR, are civilians and are reported to belong to the minority group Alawites, the same minority to which the Assad clan belonged.
– I just talked to a man who has relatives in Latakia who says they have gone from door to door, groups of armed men and asked just for Alawiter, says freelance journalist Lina Malers.
Lina Malers says that since the fall of the regime there has been a fear among Alawiter to be punished for the regime’s crime even though many have no connection to Al-Assad’s rule.
– It has become a revenge spiral that seems to have completely derailed, says Lina Malars.
In overified video material, which circulates on social media, there are dozens of dead people wearing civilian clothes. Another video shows people in security uniforms who execute people and brutally abuses captured.
People flee the violence
At the same time reports among other things BBC That hundreds of people are now fleeing the coastal area, something that Lina Malers confirms.
– I have heard rumors from here that people take refuge in Russian military bases in Latakia, now the Damascus authorities must have turned off all roads to this area along the Syrian coast. People should also have made their way up to the mountains, says Malars.