An eerie silence hangs over Arza, a mainly Alawite village in the rural countryside of Hama province in eastern Syria. All of its residents fled after armed men from neighbouring Sunni villages rampaged through here on Friday,

Armed groups killed entire families, including women and children, during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria last week, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday.

Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria's coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by rival groups during an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the U.N human rights office said on Tuesday.

By bna Cairo bureau Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Syria's coastal region during a military campaign against Alawites, the UN Human Rights Commission announced on March 11. In footage viewed by IntelliNews' Middle East and North Africa bureaus,