Mass grave containing remains of security, police personnel found near Qardaha city, according to local security source - Anadolu Ajansı

Head of UN agency calls for protection of health care facilities amid rising tensions in country's coastal provinces - Anadolu Ajansı

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Syria in the last 48 hours, according to a war monitoring group, in the deadliest eruption of violence since the fall of the Al-Assad regime in December.

Security forces were seen on the streets of Latakia on Saturday, March 8, amid reports that hundreds of members of the Alawite minortiy were killed. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 745 Alawites were killed in “30 massacres” as part of “an ethnic cleansing operation” on Friday and Saturday.

Residents described shootings outside their homes and bodies in the streets in Syria’s worst unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. More than 1,000 people have been killed since Thursday, a war monitor said.

International alarm is growing over fighting in western Syria, where hundreds of civilians have been reportedly killed amid intense clashes.

Clashes between government security forces and supporters of ousted former President Bashar al-Assad have killed at least 311 people in Syria since Thursday, according to a monitoring group that warns the actual death toll could be “much higher.

Rihab Kamel and her family hid terrified in their bathroom in the city of Baniyas as armed men stormed the neighbourhood, pursuing members of Syria's Alawite minority.