Insight’s Monitoring and Documentation team recorded 2,149 civilians as victims of conflict, fighting and hostilities in Syria, with 1,390 civilian deaths and 759 Syrian civilians injured, during the first quarter of 2025.
To prepare this report, the monitoring team in Insight conducted open-source research and contacts with direct and active field sources for the data that the report was based on.
The report was also based on documentary materials and testimonies collected for of thematic reports, as well as reports and appeals by other local organizations.
The data collecting lasted from early January 2025 to early April 2025, while data verification lasted another two weeks.
The numbers, which in fact is a small part on what is on the ground, show abuses of murder and injury by the parties to the conflict, extrajudicial detention, which also threatens to expose some victims to torture and degrading practices, including ISIS activity.
The data provide information on the causes of deaths and injuries, the proportions of victims by gender and the areas where people fell victims of explosions and war remnants.
In the first year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad regime responsible for the outbreak of war and the accompanying crises in the country, violations against Syrian civilians continue, along with peacebuilding efforts, the restoration of stability and the return of displaced persons in several areas.
Causes of civilian casualties
Continued hostilities: armed attacks, security operations, shelling and explosions lead to more victims of new violations at a time when Syrians need to build a sustainable peace based on justice for victims, survivors and their families.
The civilian death toll was the highest, due to widespread crimes within the Syrian coast security campaign launched by the Syrian army, newly joined factions and jihadist groups of Syrian foreign members and Syrians. The new authorities are required to hold those who committed the violations accountable by stopping any armed attacks and fully control their security operation.
The documentation appears to fall short of providing real figures of casualties, missing persons and displaced persons in the Coast and other regions, while the pursuit of the former regime’s militants continues, and includes hostilities of a sectarian nature due to non-discrimination between civilians and those who laid down their weapons on the one hand and militants claiming the fight against the new Government on the other.
Shelling Victims
The number of victims of external shelling (from outside Syria’s borders) is the third cause of death and the first cause of casualties recorded by INSIGHT.
The shelling killed 95 Syrian civilians (63 men, 11 women and 21 children), and injured 355 civilians, 198 men, 113 women and 44 children), as well as a number of military personnel.
Sixty-three locations under Syrian Government control were shelled, including 53 shelled by Israeli aircraft, killing 18 civilians and injuring 40 civilians.
Turkish forces shelled 510 positions, killing 77 civilians and injuring 312 civilians.
The Global Coalition to Fight ISIS shelled 5 locations, and Jordanian forces shelled two locations with no civilian victims.
2 sites were shelled by local armed groups without civilian casualties being registered, while 3 civilians were injured by shelling of an unknown party.
War remnants victims
Mines and war remnants are the second cause of death and injury of civilians in Syria during the first quarter of 2025. According to the victim’s data, the majority of victims were children, (55 children out of 206 civilian deaths, and 98 children of 230 civilian casualties).
Large numbers of killings and injuries among civilians continue to occur, highlighting the need for large-scale demining programs, especially as internally displaced persons begin to return to their homes and lands, which may be located in abandoned areas or former military areas of operation.
Other violations
- INSIGHT recorded the arrest of 144 civilians by government forces and various armed groups during the first three months of 2025, some of whom were released while others remained in detention.
- Violations of pro-Turkish factions continued in Afrin even after they were integrated in the Syrian Army, committing murders (4 civilians), injuries (26 civilians), arrests (69 civilians), incidents of robbery (61 cases), the imposition of financial royalties and ransoms worth more than $ 80 thousand, as well as logging off more than 1030 fruit trees and forestry trees.
- Syria’s coast has been subjected to widespread killings without distinction between military targets and civilians. The death toll has reached at least 886 civilians (771 men, 69 women and 46 children), which has also caused the displacement of families in extreme circumstances.
Victims by ISIS
The number of ISIS attacks during the first quarter of this year was 28 (20 against the SDF), 6 civilians were killed, and 1 civilian and other military personnel were injured.
The Global Coalition Forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Transitional Government forces targeted ISIS militants with 30 security operations, 13 of which were carried out by the Syrian Democratic Forces, as well as 13 other operations jointly with the Global Coalition Forces, and one operation by the Coalition.
The forces of the new Government in Damascus carried out 2 operations against ISIS, as well as another by a local military group.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria handed over 916 families (3,533 individuals) from Al-Hol camp to the Iraqi Government, where they were transferred to rehabilitation centers within Iraqi territory in order to reintegrate them into the communities.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria handed over 2 children and 2 women from Roj camp (in the countryside of Derik) to an Austrian government delegation.
Conclusion
As Insight, we urge all parties to end the violence and military actions and launch a comprehensive and genuine transitional justice program that allows all displaced persons and refugees to return to their areas of origin and ensures that those involved in serious crimes are held accountable within fair courts, far from reprisals that threaten the stability of societies.
The new Government should support the right of forcibly detained and missing’s families and friends to know the fate of their beloved ones, and cooperate with Syria’s International Foundation for Missing Persons to intensify efforts and accelerate the process.
The new Government should also allow the commission it had set up to investigate the events in the Coast to declare its results in full transparency and cooperate with civil society and international organizations to ensure the impartiality of the investigation, control the armed forces and their supporting members, and strengthen internal accountability standards within security institutions to ensure that violations do not occur again in the future and that foreign members are immediately excluded.
We call on all Syrians, political and community forces, to the dialogue to build their country by upholding the fundamental rights and freedoms of all parties without discrimination, protecting peaceful means of protest such as the right to assemble and demonstrate, and prevent further violations by targeting weapons, arrests or any form of repression and intimidation.
