Hammam Wasel

On March 9, 2025, military groups raided Hammam Wasel, a village known for its natural setting in the Tartous countryside, and carried out execution-style killings that left 10 civilians dead. The attack was sudden. Among those who could not flee in time were children and individuals with disabilities — people for whom escape in the seconds available was not physically possible. They were killed where they stood, or where they sat, or where they lay. Survivors described a methodical procedure: a systematic effort by the attackers to identify residents by name, by face, or by identity document before killing them. The same description appears in accounts from other villages across the coastal region during the same period — not independent actors making individual decisions, but a coordinated campaign using shared methods. After the killing, the looting began. Homes were entered, valuables taken, furniture destroyed. What could not be carried was smashed or burned. The village that had drawn visitors for its landscape and its thermal springs was left empty: its people gone, its homes gutted. The silence that settled over Hammam Wasel after March 9 is itself a form of testimony.