Calm returns to Syria’s Sweida after week-long sectarian clashes leave over 1,100 dead

Calm prevailed in southern Syria’s Sweida province on Sunday following a week of intense sectarian fighting that left more than 1,100 people dead, according to a war monitor and AFP correspondents.

A ceasefire announced Saturday appeared to be holding after previous attempts to end hostilities between Druze fighters and rival Bedouin groups collapsed. The violence had escalated to involve Islamist-led government forces, the Israeli military, and tribal militias from across Syria.

Humanitarian access resumed with the arrival of the first aid convoy, Red Crescent official Omar al-Malki confirmed, noting that more deliveries were expected. The convoy’s entry was coordinated with local Druze-controlled authorities and government agencies, he said.

However, Syria’s government reported that a Druze faction blocked one of its own convoys from reaching the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the province experienced “cautious calm” from midnight, and that government forces had sealed off roads to prevent more tribal fighters from entering.

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The UK-based monitor updated the death toll late Sunday to 1,120, including 427 Druze fighters, 298 Druze civilians, 354 government security personnel, and 21 Sunni Bedouin.

Witnesses, Druze groups, and the Observatory have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and carrying out abuses, including summary executions, when they entered the city earlier in the week.

‘Totally calm’

Hanadi Obeid, a 39-year-old doctor, told AFP that “the city hasn’t seen calm like this in a week”.

The interior ministry said overnight that Sweida city was “evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city’s neighbourhoods were halted”.

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The Observatory had said Druze fighters retook control of the city on Saturday evening.

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa had on Saturday announced a ceasefire in Sweida and renewed a pledge to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities in the face of the latest sectarian violence since Islamists overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.

A spokesman for Syria’s tribal and clan council told Al Jazeera late Saturday that fighters had left the city “in response to the call of the presidency and the terms of the agreement”.

A medic inside Sweida told AFP by telephone on Sunday that “the situation is totally calm… We aren’t hearing clashes.”

Residents of Sweida city, who number at about 150,000, have been holed up in their homes without electricity and water, and food supplies have also been scarce.

An AFP photographer said the morgue at Sweida’s main hospital was full and bodies were lying on the ground outside the building.

The United Nations migration agency said more than 128,000 people in Sweida province have been displaced by the violence.

‘Brutal acts’

US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sunday that the country stood at a “critical juncture”, adding that “peace and dialogue must prevail – and prevail now”.

“All factions must immediately lay down their arms, cease hostilities, and abandon cycles of tribal vengeance,” he wrote on X, saying “brutal acts by warring factions on the ground undermine the government’s authority and disrupt any semblance of order”.

Sharaa’s announcement Saturday came hours after the United States said it had negotiated a ceasefire between Syria’s government and Israel, which had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week.

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it was acting in defence of the group, as well as to enforce its demands for the total demilitarisation of Syria’s south.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday urged the Syrian government’s security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and “carrying out massacres” in the south, and called on Damascus to “bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks”.

With inputs from agencies