Syrian forces sent reinforcements on Monday in the southern Soueida province to try to end clashes between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druzes combatants. These fights left at least 89 dead in two days according to an NGO.
The observatory reported on a new 89 dead assessment on Monday, including 50 Druzes (46 combatants, two women and two children), 18 Bedouins, 14 members of the security forces and seven people who were not identified. The Ministry of Defense, for its part, announced more than 30 dead and a hundred injured.
These new inter-community violence illustrates the security challenges faced by the temporary power of Ahmad al-Chareh since he overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December in a country bruised by nearly 14 years of civil war.
On Monday, the clashes continued on the outskirts of the city with a Druze of Soueïda, in the hands of the Druzes combatants, said the OSDH and the local Suwayda 24. They oppose “Bedouin tribes and members of the security forces with Druze fighters”, said the NGO based in the United Kingdom, but which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
Closed shops
In the city, where explosions and shots were heard, a small number of inhabitants participated in the funeral of combatants killed in the clashes that broke out on Sunday, according to an AFP photographer. “We are very afraid, the shells fall on us. Traffic is paralyzed in the streets and shops are closed,” a 51 -year -old family told AFP Abu Taym.
The Druzes religious leaders called for calm and one of the most influential, Cheikh Hikmat al-Hejri, asked for “immediate international protection” for his community, claiming to refuse the entry of government forces into the Druzes controlled areas.
In a statement, the Syrian Defense Ministry announced the deployment of “military units in the affected areas”, “the opening of safe passages to civilians” as well as its desire to “put an end to the clashes quickly”. An AFP correspondent saw reinforcements sent by the Ministry of Defense heading towards the surroundings of Soueida while ambulances evacuated victims to the hospitals of Damascus.
The clashes broke out Sunday after the removal of a Druze merchant by Bedouins who installed dams on the road connecting Soueïda to Damascus, according to the OSDH. The Minister of the Interior Anas Khattab estimated on Sunday that the “absence of state, military and security institutions” was “a major cause of persistent tensions in Soueïda”.
The highway connecting Damascus to Soueïda was also still closed, according to the AFP correspondent.
Israel and the Druze
Israel, who has already intervened in recent months in Syria under the pretext of protecting the Druzes, has announced that he had struck several tanks of the Syrian government forces in this region on Monday, of which members fight alongside the Bedouins according to the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
Strong tensions were rushing since the interconfessional clashes in April between Druze fighters and security forces in the Druzes areas near Damascus and in Soueïda, which had left more than 100 dead.
Sunni Bedouin tribes members of Soueïda had participated in the clashes alongside the security forces, according to the OSDH. At the time, local and religious leaders had concluded agreements, under which Druzes fighters have since had security in the province since May.
The province of Soueïda is home to the most important Druze community in the country, an esoteric minority from Islam which has some 700,000 members in Syria. The Druzes are divided between Syria, Lebanon and Israel where some 152,000 of them are identified, according to the latest data available. This figure includes the 24,000 Druzes living in the occupied part of the Golan, less than 5% of which have Israeli nationality.
This article was published automatically. Sources: ATS / AFP