UN says entire families killed in Syria military operation

GENEVA (Reuters) – Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region during a military crackdown against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the U.N human rights office said on Tuesday.

So far, the U.N. human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, U.N. human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing.

“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis…,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by Friederike Heine)