The violence has pitted the Islamist-led government's security forces against fighters from Assad's Alawite minority. The dead include hundreds of Alawite civilians, whom the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported were killed in reprisals after attacks on security forces.

Alawites are an Arab ethnic and religious group, with distinct cultures, languages and religious beliefs. They live mainly in the Levant region in West Asia.

Alawites, a Shia sect, ruled Syria for decades under the Assads. Now, after Bashar al-Assad's fall, they face violence as sectarian tensions escalate in the war-torn country

While Alawites are generally considered an offshoot of Shia Islam, their beliefs and practices are far more complex

For two days, 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. The coastal city is part of Syria’s Alawite heartland that has been gripped by the fiercest violence since former president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December.

Ali Koshmr, a 36-year-old man from Syria's Latakia, around 330 km from Damascus, woke up to the sounds of gunfire, tires screeching and dozens of armed men shouting, "Come out, you Alawite pigs, Nusayris!