Germany reopened its embassy in Damascus on Thursday, 13 years after it was shut in the early days of Syria’s civil war.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reopened the embassy during a visit to Damascus, her second since the fall of former President Bashar Assad in December, reports said.
Germany’s mission closed in 2012 when the country was engulfed in a deadly civil war. Consular affairs and visas will continue to be handled from Beirut given the precarious security situation, the source said.
Before leaving for Syria, Baerbock spoke out against internal violence that broke out there in recent weeks, saying the new leadership must do more to control “groups in its own ranks.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, security forces and allied groups killed at least 1500 civilians, most of them Alawites, the same minority to which former president Bashar al-Assad belongs.
Baerbock said she would use her trip to tell Syria’s government that a “fresh start” between Europe and Germany on one side and Syria on the other was conditional on all Syrians enjoying freedom and security regardless of faith, gender or ethnicity.
Various rights organisations estimate the death toll to be anywhere between 580,000 and 620,000.
The UN Human Rights Office estimated that over 306,887 civilians were killed between March 1, 2011, and March 31, 2021.
The UN stated that at least 350,209 “identified individuals” had been killed in the conflict between March 2011 and March 2021, but cautioned this was an undercount.
However, experts have pointed out that the real death count stands at over 700,000 from 2011-2025.
