The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented on Friday, March 1, the killing of 78 civilians in Syria during the past February, including seven children.
According to the network’s monthly report, four of the deceased were women, and nine people, including a child, were killed under torture. The report also notes the death of 18 civilians, among them two children, while they were harvesting truffles.
Regime forces killed nine civilians, including a woman, whereas the (armed opposition factions/the Syrian National Army) killed three civilians. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was responsible for the death of a civilian, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) killed seven civilians including two children.
As per the report, 59 civilians including four children and three women were killed by other parties.
The SNHR documented the killing of a member of the medical staff by other entities, in addition to three massacres committed by the conflict parties and the controlling forces in Syria, bringing the total number of documented massacres in the same month to 25 civilians, including a woman.
With regard to the geographic distribution of the victims, Raqqa province topped the list with 24% of the total documented victims, with all its victims killed by other parties, followed by Deir Ezzor province with about 18%, and then the provinces of Daraa and Homs with approximately 17% of the total death toll.
In February, nine people were killed due to torture, five of them by regime forces, one person by Tahrir al-Sham, two by all opposition factions, and one child by the SDF.
Throughout 2024, there were victims due to mines planted by unidentified parties, making the total number of victims due to mines 27 civilians, among them seven children and two women.
The network referred to evidence that some attacks targeted civilians and civil entities, as well as random shelling that caused destruction of facilities and buildings. It emphasized that the use of remote detonations to target densely populated residential areas reflects a criminal mindset and a premeditated intention to inflict the greatest number of casualties possible, in violation of international human rights law and breach of the Geneva 4 Convention (Articles 32, 31, 27).
Not far from January
The SNHR’s statistics for the past February come close to those of the previous January when it documented the killing of 72 civilians by various parties to the conflict in Syria.
The difference in January was the predominance of Daraa, in southern Syria, over other provinces in the total number of casualties, recording 22% of them, slightly less than Raqqa in the past February (24%).