The UN’s Turk said in a statement there had been a “continuous spike in hate speech both online and offline” in Syria and insisted there was an “urgent need for a comprehensive transitional justice process”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, speaking to German newspaper Bild, said Europe “must wake up” and “stop granting legitimacy” to the new Syrian authorities who he insisted were still jihadists.
The Alawite heartland has been gripped by fear of reprisals for the Assad family’s five-decade rule which included widespread torture and disappearances.
Social media users have shared posts documenting the killing of Alawite friends and relatives.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, reported multiple “massacres” in recent days, with women and children among the dead.
During a sermon in Damascus, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X said Christians were among those killed and called on Sharaa to “put a stop to these massacres … and give a sense of safety and security to all the people of Syria, regardless of their sect”.
Later on Sunday, Syrian security forces fired into the air to disperse rival protesters in Damascus who engaged in physical altercations over the killings in the coastal areas.
