Victims of the massacre in Banias, Syria
Women and children are amongst the more than a hundred reportedly executed in massacres in the village of Bayda and nearby port of Banias in the north-west of the country.
72 people were killed in the first massacre in Bayda on the 2nd May as government troops and pro-Assad militiamen or “shabbiha” swept through the Sunni-majority village.
Two days later, in the Ras al-Nabaa quarter in the nearby coastal city of Banias, another “large-scale massacre” occurred with a further 77 people executed in what the opposition National Coalition accused the regime of “war crimes and genocide”. The gruesome photographs and videos from the aftermath show bodies of men, women, and children shot, stabbed, and many of the bodies burned.
Another view of the Syrian charnel house. http://t.co/e0Q0F0pk7Q
— DavidKenner (@DavidKenner) May 4, 2013
The Assad regime described the situation as their forces fighting back against “terrorist groups” to restore peace to the area.
The increased violence in the coastal area has forced hundreds of families to flee towards the city of Tartus, but activists have said that these families have been blocked from taking shelter there.
These massacres demonstrate the increasingly sectarian nature of the Syrian civil war which has raged for more than two years, with government forces working alongside the notoriously violent shabbiha groups targeting Sunni-majority towns and villages in what some activists have described as “sectarian cleansing”.
In a statement, the National Coalition said:
“The Coalition calls on the Arab League and the United Nations to act rapidly to save the civilians of Baida, Banias and other villages across Syria”
