Hadeel Arja and Khalil Ashawi
Tiny Hand/ يد صغيرة
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The Tiny Hand team, in collaboration with Daraj, collected over 50 testimonies documenting the killing of 60 children during the massacres in the Syrian coastal region. To this day, the perpetrators have not been held accountable. These were “unidentified” killers — witnesses interviewed could not determine their factional affiliations, alongside others from armed civilian groups who arrived in the coastal area. Amnesty International has called for their prosecution, considering the events of March 6, 7, 8, and 9, 2025, to be war crimes….
All names in this investigative report have been changed to protect the safety and security of those involved and to ensure the identities of the foster families who have taken in some of these children remain confidential. Confidentiality is a fundamental principle in the success of this mission, as safeguarding the identities of both the children and the families providing care is critical, particularly in regions affected by ongoing conflict and instability.
In Syria, one-third of the population lives in communities contaminated by unexploded ordnance
“They would enter homes and tell the women, if you have two children, we’ll kill one and leave the other, if you have five, we’ll kill three and leave two, and so on.” These were their commander’s orders, instructing them to kill every man over 18 and under 40….
