The young woman Juliana Adnan Khashifi was killed as a result of being directly shot by unknown gunmen while she was at her workplace inside a small commercial shop on Taghlib Street in the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood of Homs, western Syria, on the evening of 9 February 2026. This incident constitutes a serious violation of the right to life and occurs amid a noticeable deterioration in security conditions and an escalation in incidents targeting civilians in the city.
According to available information, unidentified armed individuals opened fire on Juliana Adnan Khashifi while she was working inside a commercial shop in the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood, inflicting a fatal injury that led to her death.
Preliminary circulating information indicates that the victim belonged to the Alawite sect, and local posts reported that she was blind.
Conversely, media outlets close to Syria’s interim authority نقلed statements from a source within the Ministry of Interior in Homs indicating that the perpetrator’s identity remains unknown at the time of preparing this report, and that security forces have initiated pursuit operations to apprehend the assailant. The source stated that surveillance cameras showed the perpetrator was riding a motorcycle while carrying out the crime.
The official source also denied that the victim was completely blind, clarifying that she had vision in one eye, contradicting some accounts circulated on social media.
This crime occurred only days after the killing of Amer al-Yousef, a young man from the Alawite sect, who was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the predominantly Alawite Akrama neighborhood of Homs on 6 February 2026.
According to corroborated information, gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on Amer al-Yousef while he was near Al-Malja’ Park in the aforementioned neighborhood, killing him instantly before fleeing the scene.
The killings of Juliana Adnan Khashifi and Amer al-Yousef fall within an escalating pattern of serious human rights violations, particularly extrajudicial killings of civilians, amid alarming indications of individuals being targeted on sectarian and religious grounds.
Field evidence points to a rise in incidents of killing, targeting, and arrest of civilians belonging to the Alawite, Shiite, and Druze communities, as well as members of the Kurdish ethnic group, in a context marked by continued impunity and the absence of effective accountability.
The killing of Juliana Adnan Khashifi cannot be considered an isolated individual incident; rather, it forms part of a grave security and human rights deterioration in the city of Homs and other areas of Syria. This situation necessitates a prompt, independent, and transparent investigation, the holding of those responsible accountable, and the adoption of urgent measures to ensure the protection of civilians and respect for international human rights law.
