The head of the UN Human Rights Office called on 18 July for Syria’s interim government to ensure accountability and justice for killings and rights violations in the southern city of Suwayda, home to members of the Druze religious minority.
Armed Bedouin fighters and soldiers from Syria’s army and internal security forces invaded the Suwayda earlier this week. Local Druze militias defended the city, while Israel launched airstrikes against Syrian government forces before a ceasefire was declared.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it had received credible reports of human rights violations, including summary executions, kidnappings, and destruction of private property by security forces and individuals linked to the Syrian government, including Bedouin militiamen. Druze militiamen reportedly carried out some summary executions of Bedouin civilians in response.
“This bloodshed and the violence must stop, and the protection of all people must be the utmost priority, in line with international human rights law,” OHCHR High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement.
In one incident recorded on video from 15 July, at least 13 Druze were executed at a family gathering by gunmen linked to the Syrian government, led by interim President and former ISIS commander Ahmad al-Sharaa. Another six men were summarily executed near their homes the same day, the OHCHR said.
“My Office has received accounts of distressed Syrians who are living in fear for their lives and those of their loved ones,” Turk said.
Residents speaking with Reuters “described friends and neighbors being shot at close range in their homes or in the streets. They said the killings were carried out by Syrian troops, identified by their fatigues and the insignia on them.”
“The violence worsened sharply after the arrival of government forces,” Reuters reported, citing Suwayda residents, two reporters on the ground, and a monitoring group.
“I can’t keep up with the calls coming in now about the dead,” said Kenan Azzam, a dentist from Suwayda who spoke to the British newspaper by phone.
He said his friend, an agricultural engineer named Anis Nasser, had been taken from his home and executed, adding, “Today, they found his dead body in a pile of bodies in Suwayda city.”
Syrian journalist Wael Essam reported that, according to his sources, a massacre at the National Hospital in Suwayda was carried out by members of Ansar al-Tawhid (Division 82) against wounded Druze militants and accompanying civilians.
Hellbound and Down 