Published On 7/6/2026
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Last update: 17:09 (Mecca time)
The National Commission for Transitional Justice began listening to families of victims, survivors, and witnesses of the Houla massacre, which was committed by elements loyal to the ousted Bashar al-Assad regime in 2012 in the countryside of Homs Governorate, as part of the Commission’s “efforts to uncover the truth and bring justice to the victims.”
Close field investigation
The head of the Commission, Abdel Basset Abdel Latif, announced the start of official investigations into the “Houla Massacre,” confirming the opening of a center for the Commission soon in the city of Homs.
For its part, the Syrian News Agency (SANA), yesterday, Sunday, quoted a member of the Commission’s truth-revealing department, Dr. Ahmed Seifu, that the “Houla” station acquires special symbolism in Syrian memory due to the widespread violations it witnessed against civilians, especially women and children, and at that time it received international attention, stressing that “the step stems from the right of Syrians to know the truth and see justice, and the right of the victims to justice and compensation.”
Sifo added, “The authority will soon move to the stage of a comprehensive field investigation to collect testimonies and examine the causes and circumstances of the crime in coordination with the judicial authorities.”
Orders to liquidate children
During the hearing, one of the women’s relatives told the story Details of the storming of her family’s home, explaining that she heard the intruders giving orders to each other to kill children before adults, as one of the gunmen repeated the phrase, “Set up the child before the adult.”
The woman added, in a video clip published by the “Syria Now” platform, that she tried to drag one of the young children to escape with him, but the gunmen took the initiative to kill everyone with bullets. The family later received a call from a surviving child informing them of the death of all her parents and siblings, saying: “They are all dead.”
Houla massacre
The Houla massacre is considered one of the ugliest and largest massacres in Syria. It was committed by what was known as the “Shabiha” loyal to the deposed regime’s rule on May 25, 2012. It claimed the lives of 107 civilians, including 49 children and 32 women, as documented at the time by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Then, Bashar al-Assad’s forces besieged the town of “Tal Do” at the entrance to the Houla region for about 10 hours and bombed it intensively, before groups of “Shabiha” stormed it and carried out mass killings there.
Returning the perpetrators to the crime scene
In May 2025, the Syrian Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of several people involved in crimes, including the Houla massacre. It also broadcast video confessions of a number of members of the deposed regime who were arrested on charges of participating in the massacre.
The recording published by the Ministry showed that those arrested re-enacted the details of the massacre at the site of its occurrence.
