Syrian activists have recently circulated on social media video footage showing a group of young men killing Eida al-Hamoudi, 18, in an area in the countryside of Hasakah province, in northeastern Syria.

In the video, a group of young men dragged the girl to an abandoned house. They were howling chants calling for revenge and washing away shame and dishonor. The girl was thrown to the ground and fired at with live bullets as she pleaded for her life. She ended up being brutally killed for the sake of preserving honor.

Sources from the Hasakah countryside told Al-Monitor that Hamoudi was killed because she refused to marry her cousin and ran away with a young man she allegedly loved. She was pursued by members of her tribe and killed in an abandoned house in the countryside of al-Malikiyah, north of Hasakah.

The sources said that the young man with whom the girl had purportedly ran away had asked her family for her hand in marriage, but his request was rejected. Tribal customs give male family relatives priority in marriage and any suitors from outside the family or tribe may be rejected.