For two days, Rihab Kamel and her family hid terrified in their bathroom in the city of Baniyas as armed men stormed the neighbourhood, pursuing members of Syria’s Alawite minority. The coastal city is part of Syria’s Alawite heartland that has been gripped by the fiercest violence since former president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December.

The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 600, a war monitoring group said Saturday.

A monitoring group says 973 civilians have been killed in revenge attacks against the Alawite sect since Thursday.