The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented the extrajudicial killing of eight civilians, including two children and two women (one of them a medical worker), across Syria on Saturday July 12, 2025 & Sunday, July 13, 2025.
Distributed as follows:
Gunshots by unidentified gunmen: seven civilians, including a child and two women (one of them a medical worker).
Misuse of weapons: one child.
SNHR laments the continued incidents of extrajudicial killings. There is an urgent need to make every effort to ensure the protection of civilian lives. This is particularly important in light of the current political transformations and the entry into a transitional phase that is expected to focus on promoting stability and the rule of law.
SNHR believes that the repeated civilian casualties point to ongoing gaps in protection and accountability systems, which underlines the urgent need to strengthen institutions that guarantee respect for fundamental rights in accordance with international human rights law.
In this context, SNHR stresses the importance of adhering to the principle of distinguishing between civilians and combatants and the necessity of taking all possible measures to ensure the safety of individuals and their property.
SNHR also calls for sustained efforts to prevent the recurrence of the grave violations experienced by Syrians throughout the years of internal conflict, through legal and institutional mechanisms that respect human dignity, contribute to rebuilding societal trust, and promote justice, while also prevent the recurrence of grave violations from which Syrians have suffered for too long.
Background
For the past 14 years, SNHR been documenting violations against civilians in Syria on a daily basis, in line with a rigorous methodology based on international documentation standards. This enabled the group to build and sustain a database for serious human rights violations, including killings. The massive volume of grave human rights violations, as attested by SNHR’s database, suggests that such violations occurred in a context of complete impunity, with virtually no accountability.
During these years, SNHR has documented the deaths of more than a quarter of a million civilians, the vast majority of whom were killed by the former Bashar Assad’s regime and its allies, who are responsible for no less than 91 percent of the total number of documented victims.
Recommendations to protect civilians during the transitional phase
These daily briefs come at a critical transitional stage in Syria, which calls for immediate and comprehensive reform of the security apparatus and the activation of justice and accountability mechanisms to prevent the recurrence of past violations and to halt ongoing killings and violations.
SNHR recommends the following:
Take immediate steps to enhance security across all regions and implement the rule of law in a fair and comprehensive manner.
Activate independent and transparent mechanisms to investigate violations and hold perpetrators accountable, regardless of their identity or position.
Accelerate the removal of landmines and unexploded ordnance scattered in many areas, in cooperation with specialized organizations.
Ensure the non-recurrence of impunity patterns that have fueled violence and establish a system that protects human rights without discrimination.
