section_path: Violence and massacres/March/8 March
section_name: 8 March
paragraph_text: 8 March
  
  On 8 March 2025, the General Security Forces installed multiple checkpoints in the coastal cities of Syria to prevent violations from occurring. By lunchtime, security forces had retaken control of the cities of Latakia, Baniyas, Tartous and Jableh, but fighting with Assad loyalist groups continued in the outskirts and rural areas. Pro-government reinforcements arrived in Qardaha, where Assadist loyalists were still fighting. Forces loyal to Damascus arrested one group of fighters that had committed violations against Alawite civilians, and seized vehicles stolen by armed groups from local residents.
  
  In Baniyas, armed groups reportedly returned to areas they had previously targeted, resuming executions and expanding their victims to include entire families, including women and children. One resident claimed that attackers who had accepted payments or valuables such as gold and silver to spare lives on 7 March returned the next day to kill those same individuals.
  
  31 civilians in Tuwaym, including nine children and four women, were killed and buried in a mass grave. Residents of Alawite villages and towns claimed that gunmen shot civilians in streets or at the entrances to their homes. In some instances, assailants reportedly checked identification documents to verify individuals' religious affiliation before killing them. Other witnesses reported attackers gathering near residential buildings, firing indiscriminately at homes, burning down homes, stealing cars and property, leaving bodies in the streets, on rooftops, and inside homes, and preventing residents from retrieving the deceased for proper burial. Some residents claimed that the attackers included foreign fighters and militants from neighboring communities, though these allegations could not be independently verified.
  
  During the afternoon, gunmen fired upon a funeral procession in Muzayraa, killing two brothers, forcing civilians to run away into surrounding orchards. Several armed groups coming from neighboring Sunni settlements alleged by survivors to be associated with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) reportedly "started killing everyone in the houses" of Sharifa, while setting fire to and looting residences. Surviving residents reported that they confirmed twenty-seven deaths, which included five women, after assembling photos and videos of residents killed. A list of names of over 130 civilian victims in Muzayraa, over fifty from Snobar, forty-two from Ain al-Arous, and eleven in Bustan al-Basha was distributed by surviving locals.
  
  Electricity and drinking water supplies were cut off in large areas around Latakia. Thousands of residents reportedly fled to nearby mountains for safety. Others sought refuge across the border in Lebanon, according to Lebanese lawmaker Haidar Nasser. Lebanese lawmaker Sajih Attieh reported that "very large waves" of displaced Syrians evacuated to five or six Alawite villages in Akkar District, estimating a total of 10,000 arrivals in one day. He claimed that due to earlier Israeli bombardments of three border crossings, there was no public security present to legally control the flow of displaced Syrians.
  
  Dozens of civilians, former members of the Assad regime and their families fled to the Khmeimim Air Base – still under Russian control – in Latakia province to seek refuge. Footage and satellite imagery verified by The New York Times showed hundreds of newly parked vehicles on roads inside the base perimeter. Video evidence documented large crowds of people outside the facility holding placards and chanting "We want international protection." More than a dozen military tents had been erected, with footage showing women and children receiving food distributed by personnel in military fatigues inside the base.
  
  By midday on 8 March, the number of killings reported by SOHR reached 532, and reached 745 by the end of the day. SNHR, in contrast, said late on 8 March that since 6 March a total of 164 civilians, including seven children and 13 women, were confirmed killed in the villages and towns of Jableh, Baniyas, and Latakia, as well as 121 General Security checkpoint personnel and that 147 people (26 civilians and 121 security forces) had been killed by militants loyal to Assad, but noted that the actual death toll would be much higher.