In one of the worst clashes in Syria since Assad’s fall, more than 1,000 people have been killed in just two days in brutal revenge killings as the country is gripped by bloody clashes between its new rulers and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad.
According to Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 745 civilians were killed in the massacres, 125 government security force members and 148 militants with armed groups affiliated with Assad were killed.
It added that electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around the city of Latakia.
The violent clashes, which erupted Thursday, are some of the deadliest since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago, and marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after insurgents took authority after removing Assad from power.
Witnesses revealed how women were reportedly told to ‘walk naked’ before being shot dead amid horrifying scenes in Syria.
The government has said that they were responding to attacks from remnants of Assad’s forces and blamed ‘individual actions’ for the rampant violence.
The revenge killings that were started by Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the faction that led the overthrow of the former government.
Alawites made up a large part of Assad’s support base for decades.
Residents of Baniyas, one of the towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them.
One witness said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbors killed Friday at close range.
‘They forcibly brought people down to the streets, then they lined them up and started shooting them,’ a resident told Sky News.Â
