The Transitional Government Must Take Urgent Action to Hold the Perpetrators Accountable and Ensure Civilian Protection
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The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has documented a surge in violent and unlawful killings in Homs city between April 23 and 28, 2025 that saw the killing of at least 20 civilians, including one woman, in separate and successive incidents across the city. Most victims were found shot dead, in circumstances clearly suggesting the involvement of armed groups operating outside the law.
Initial investigations indicate that the killings were concentrated in the neighborhoods of Wadi al-Thahab, Karm al-Zaitoun, al-Nuzha, and Karm al-Luz – all areas predominantly inhabited by members of the Alawite sect. These killings ranged from targeted assassinations of individuals previously affiliated with the Assad regime, some of whom had gone through reconciliation agreements, to random killings suspected to be driven by sectarian and retaliatory motives. This reflects a troubling rise in social tensions and instability in these parts of the city.
Available data and the sequence of field events indicate that this wave of violence began immediately after patrols conducted by the Ministry of Interior’s General Security Directorate entered the village of Rayyan in eastern rural Homs on Wednesday, April 23, with the aim of establishing permanent headquarters and checkpoints. The move faced immediate opposition from local armed groups affiliated with the al-Fawa’ra tribe, which forced the government forces to withdraw.
Following this withdrawal, Homs city witnessed a significant escalation in armed violence, with attacks targeting the aforementioned neighborhoods. Eyewitness accounts and testimonies from local residents indicate that the attacks were retaliatory in nature, seemingly designed to create security confusion and undermine public trust in the security apparatus’s ability to sustain stability, particularly given their timing just hours after the tension in eastern rural Homs.
These developments coincided with ongoing security operations by government forces to pursue individuals accused of being affiliated with the former Assad regime and implicated in human rights violations. Simultaneously, unidentified armed groups, operating outside state control, emerged and carried out killings primarily targeting Alawite individuals. This strongly suggests acts of score-settling related to the former Assad regime’s rule. These incidents raise serious concerns about the potential spread of retaliatory violence. The nature and timing of these attacks highlight continued security and social instability in Homs, amid the presence of multiple armed factions and the absence of a centralized security authority capable of restoring order. This underlines the depth of the challenges the city faces during the transitional phase.
The violence also triggered partial displacement from some affected neighborhoods, along with a notable decline in economic and commercial activity, and a worsening sense of fear and insecurity among residents. These trends pose a direct threat to the foundations of societal stability and civil peace in Homs.
SNHR views this escalation as a dangerous indicator of deteriorating security conditions, the persistence of organized crime patterns, and serious violations against civilians, occurring in a near-total absence of effective mechanisms for accountability and justice, and amid weak coordination between official security and military institutions.
