The United Nations Security Council meets on the situation in the Middle East at UN headquarters in New York. AFP
In a statement, the council said it condemned widespread violence in western Syria since March 6 that has included "mass killings of civilians," particularly among the Alawite community, associated with ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
At least 1,383 civilians, the vast majority of them Alawites, were killed in the recent wave of violence that gripped Syria's Mediterranean coast, a war monitor said this week.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians were killed in "executions by security forces and allied groups" after the violence broke out last week in the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority, to which al-Assad belongs.
The Security Council expressed "grave concern over the impact of this violence on escalating tensions among communities in Syria and calls on all parties to immediately cease all violence and inflammatory activities and to ensure that all civilians, civilian infrastructure and humanitarian operations are protected."
"The Security Council calls on the interim authorities to protect all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religion," said the statement issued on behalf of the council and read out by the ambassador from Denmark, its current chair.
Since Assad was ousted in December, many Alawites have lived in fear of reprisals for his oppressive rule.
The new violence began last Thursday when clashes broke out after gunmen loyal to Assad staged attacks on the new security forces.
Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the Sunni group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that toppled Assad, has vowed to prosecute those behind the "bloodshed of civilians", and has set up a fact-finding committee.
HTS, an offshoot of the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, remains proscribed as a terrorist organisation by several governments, including the United States.
Since the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011, the Security Council has been largely stifled over the conflict due to veto power struggles between Moscow and Washington.
However, things have shifted since his ouster, as the text released on Friday was prepared jointly by Russia and the United States.
In December, the council urged Syria to engage in an inclusive political process involving all of its communities as it tries to put the Assad years behind it. The statement Friday repeated this appeal.
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