A/HRC/25/65 Annex III [English only] Specific mandate on massacres 1. The Commission continued to carry out its special mandate to investigate all massacres.a The Commission has not been granted access to conduct investigations on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. This has severely hampered its efforts to establish the circumstances of a number of alleged massacres to its evidentiary standard. In many parts of Syria, communication lines, including phone and internet, have been restricted or cut. In the incidents described, the intentional mass killing and identity of the perpetrator were confirmed to the commission’s evidentiary standards. Government forces and pro-Government militia Qarfah Village, Dara’a, 6 June 2013 2. On 6 June 2013, Government forces and armed men in plain clothes executed five civilians, including a four-year-old girl during an incursion into a private house in Qarfah village. Government forces raided the house after arresting and killing a male member of the family at a military position in Izraa, on the suspicion that he was a member of a nonState armed group. Al-Zarra, Tal-Kalkh area, Homs, 15 July 2013 3. On 15 July 2013, seven members of a local Reconciliation Committee in the village of Al-Zarra were shot dead by local pro-Government Popular Committee members from a neighbouring Alawite village. The victims were unarmed civilians. Among them were two retired Syrian army officers and a former mayor of a village in the area. 4. The Reconciliation Committee members were killed as they were accompanying unarmed rebels on their way to the State police station in Talkalakh, in order to facilitate their surrender. Their convoy was ambushed near an army checkpoint and attacked by Popular Committee members from a neighbouring village. Neither the Reconciliation Committee members nor those being escorted were carrying arms. Karnaz, Hama, 26 September 2013 5. On 26 September, eight members of a family were killed in their home by Government forces and pro-Government militia. The massacre occurred as Government forces raided the house in order to confiscate agricultural goods, on the suspicion that they were being used to feed armed opposition fighters. When the mother in the family refused to hand over the foodstuffs, Government forces killed the woman and seven family members. Non-State armed groups Jamlah Village (Dara’a), 3 March 2013 a See A/HRC/22/59, para 42. 33