UN Security Council
c/o Evangelos C. Sekeris
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Hellenic Republic
Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations
866 Second Avenue, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10017-2905
Re: Urgent Request for Protection of Religious Minorities in Syria
Dear Ambassador Sekeris:
We are writing to you in your capacity as the President of the UN Security Council to urge the Security Council to take immediate measures to protect religious minority groups in Syria — including the Shia, Christian, Druze and Alawite communities — who are currently under grave threat of genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the HTS government which came to power in December of 2024, as well as from militias aligned with this government.
The HTS, it must be said, is an offshoot of the Al-Nusra Front of Al-Qaeda whose aim has been to set up a religious Califate in Syria based upon an extremist philosophy known as Wahabism. The HTS and allied groups view those practicing any religions other than extremist Wahabism as apostates, heretics or infidels deserving of exile and/or extermination. And indeed, this extermination is now taking place in Syria. This is indeed being recognized by numerous international bodies, governments, the UN and the press.
For example, the United States has acknowledged the commission of terrible crimes against the Alawite community (and other religious minority groups as well) and the responsibility of the Syrian regime for them. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in a press release on March 9, 2025:
The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days. The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.
For its part, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded:
The HTS-led interim government forces, along with elements of Hurras al-Din and other jihadist groups, engaged in violence and extrajudicial killings in northwestern Syria in early March 2025 primarily targeting religious minorities that resulted in the death of more than 1,000 people, including Alawi and Christian civilians.
For its part, Amnesty International has recently confirmed the intentional targeting of Alawites, in particular, for violence, including murder, by forces connected to the current HTS regime, and is urging, as we, that this violence be investigated as war crimes. As Amnesty International reported on April 3, 2025, in a document entitled, “Syria: Coastal massacres of Alawite civilians must be investigated as war crimes,” “[g]overnment affiliated militias deliberately killed civilians from the Alawite minority.” (emphasis added).
Amnesty International related that “[m]ilitias affiliated with the government killed more than 100 people in the coastal city of Banias on 8 and 9 March 2025…. The organization has investigated 32 of the killings, and concluded that they were deliberate, targeted at the Alawite minority sect and unlawful. Armed men asked people if they were Alawite before threatening or killing them and, in some cases, appeared to blame them for violations committed by the former government, witnesses told Amnesty International. Families of victims were forced by the authorities to bury their loved ones in mass burial sites without religious rites or a public ceremony.”
Amnesty International acknowledged that the figure of over 100 killed was most likely a severe undercount. And indeed, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory estimated that over 1500 civilians had been killed, mostly due to them being targeted upon sectarian lines, as of March 17, 2025, and that number has only continued to rise since then.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International continued, “The perpetrators of this horrifying wave of brutal mass killings must be held accountable. Our evidence indicates that government affiliated militias deliberately targeted civilians from the Alawite minority in gruesome reprisal attacks – shooting individuals at close range in cold blood. For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings. Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores…. Deliberately killing civilians or deliberately killing injured, surrendered or captured fighters is a war crime. States have an obligation to ensure prompt, independent, effective and impartial investigations into allegations of unlawful killings and to hold perpetrators of international crimes to account.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has made similar findings. Thus, on March 11, 2025, the High Commissioner issued a statement denouncing this violence and stating:
Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis, in Tartus, Latakia and Hama governorates – reportedly by unidentified armed individuals, members of armed groups allegedly supporting the caretaker authorities’ security forces, and by elements associated with the former government.
In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular. According to many testimonies collected by our Office, perpetrators raided houses, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before proceeding to either kill or spare them accordingly. Some survivors told us that many men were shot dead in front of their families.
Between 6 and 7 March, armed individuals reportedly affiliated with the former government’s security forces also raided several hospitals in Latakia, Tartus and Baniyas. They clashed with security forces of the caretaker authorities and affiliated armed groups. This reportedly resulted in dozens of civilian casualties, including patients, doctors and medical students, and damage to the hospitals.
Other violations and abuses recorded in recent days include widespread looting of homes and shops, mainly by unidentified individuals who appear to have taken advantage of the chaotic situation on the ground. Many civilians have fled their homes to rural areas, while a number also reportedly sought refuge at an airbase controlled by Russian forces in the area.
In light of the facts on the ground, the Lempkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has issued “an urgent Red Flag Alert for Syria due to the critical risk of genocide against Syrians from the Alawite sect, particularly in Syria’s Coastal region.” This alert means that, in the view of the Lempkin Institute, genocide is at imminent risk in Syria, and the Institute bases this view on the number of killings which it estimates in the thousands; the fact that the armed groups involved in the killings are explicit about targeting Alawites and use dehumanizing language to describe the Alawites; the torture and intentional displacement (“cleansing”) of the Alawites; and the Syrian government’s complicity in all of this.
In light of the above, we urge the Security Council to take the following emergency measures to protect religious minorities in Syria from imminent genocide and ethnic cleansing:
- Deployment of United Nations Peace Forces and establishment of safe zones:
We demand the urgent deployment of UN Peace Forces to protect civilians in the western and northwestern Syria, especially in settlements where religious minority communities live, and the declaration of safe zones under international protection.
- Delivering of urgent humanitarian aid:
We demand that the United Nations and relevant institutions take immediate action to deliver basic humanitarian aid such as food, water, medical support and shelter to the civilian population, particularly in the coastal region, being actively deprived of basic living resources due to violence and siege.
- Establishment of an independent investigation and monitoring commission:
We demand the establishment of an independent UN investigation and monitoring commission to document, monitor and report on the systematic violence, targeted massacres and forced displacements targeting Alawite communities in the western and northwestern Syria, as well as the rights violations suffered by Christians and other non-Sunni communities living in the same geography.
- Allowing independent media to enter the region:
We demand that the United Nations put pressure on the relevant parties and take the necessary diplomatic initiatives to ensure that international and independent media organizations have access to the region, that the world public hears directly about what is happening, and that the region becomes accessible for trustworthy news free of misinformation.
- Protection and Facilitation of Return of Refugees:
We demand that the United Nations prevail upon the government of Lebanon to grant asylum to the religious minorities from Syria. We further demand that the UN provide the necessary services and aid to these refugees to allow them to live and thrive in Lebanon. At the same time, we demand that the UN help facilitate the safe return of those refugees who wish to return to Syria.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
Sincerely yours,
Bahman Azad
President, U.S. Peace Council
