Sweida atrocities

dpa
(TNS)

Sweida atrocities

Cairo (dpa) — As calm has reportedly been restored in restive Sweida, a stronghold of Syria’s Druze minority, allegations have emerged of atrocities perpetrated by warring sides over the past week, reviving grim memories of attacks on the Alawites, another minority, earlier this year.

Sweida in southern Syria has been gripped by week-long fighting between Druze factions and Sunni Muslim Bedouins, leaving hundreds dead in one of the country’s bloodiest clashes since the overthrow of long-time ruler Bashar Assad in December.

After the violence broke out, Syrian government troops intervened, prompting Israel to attack targets in the region and the capital Damascus, citing its duty to protect the Druze.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, on Sunday reported massive abuses in Sweida including the summary executions of 197 people, mostly by government forces and allied fighters.

“The atrocities in Sweida included beheadings of the Druze and torching their houses by fighters coming from outside the province,” the Observatory’s head Rami Abdel-Rahman told dpa.

The UK-based monitor, which relies on a network of reporters inside Syria, has cited videos, pictures and audio clips purportedly documenting abuses by fighters on both sides, and said the actions amount to war crimes. The material could not be independently verified.

In Abdel-Rahman’s view, the latest alleged abuses were similar to attacks reported in Syria’s coastal region in March against the Alawite minority, a sect to which Assad belongs.

“These atrocities did not differ from the atrocities committed against the Alawite sect. The Druze have weapons, unlike the Alawites,” he told dpa.

Abdel-Rahman accused Syria’s government-linked media outlets of fueling sectarian tensions in both cases.

“How did we sink into such brutal violence and humiliation?” wrote Syrian-born journalist Maher Akraa, who lives in Switzerland and researches online hate speech.

“Why this barbaric killing, maiming, and insulting of our humanity?” Akraa said, calling the massacres against Druze and Bedouin families “truly horrifying.”

Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has vowed protection for all minorities in the ethnically and religiously diverse country, which is trying to rebuild following more than a decade of civil war.

In the wake of the upheaval in the coastal region, the Syrian government tasked a commission with investigating the violence there.

The Syrian presidency on Sunday said al-Sharaa had received the commission’s final report, but the findings have yet to be made public.

The latest violence comes as Syrians are still reeling from the atrocities experienced during the decades-long rule of the al-Assad family, including mass killings and torture.