Qarfis

Between March 6 and 11, 2025, the village of Qarfis in the Lattakia countryside was subjected to a five-day assault that survivors described as organised sectarian cleansing. The arrival of heavy armour and armed vehicles — military-grade equipment deployed against an unarmed rural community — signalled from the outset that this was not a security operation. Over those five days, 25 civilians were killed. Hours of sustained heavy gunfire kept families barricaded indoors, unable to flee or reach the wounded. When the armed factions — linked to the interim government's security apparatus in Damascus — moved through the village, the looting was systematic: homes stripped of valuables, vehicles taken, anything of worth carried off. The organisation of it suggested prior coordination and a sense of complete impunity. Survivors described the particular bitterness of knowing that those killing them wore the insignia of a government that had promised transition and reconciliation. Qarfis lost 25 of its people. Those who remained were left with that knowledge.