DAMASCUS (AFP) — Clashes between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria have killed 37 people, a war monitor said Monday, as authorities sent forces to de-escalate the situation.
The clashes are the first outbreak of deadly violence in the area since fighting between members of the Druze community and the security forces killed dozens of people in April and May.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 27 of those killed are Druze, including two children, and 10 are Bedouin.
It also reported the closure of the Damascus-Sweida highway due to the violence.
Syria’s interior ministry put the toll at “more than 30 deaths and nearly 100 injuries” and said it would deploy troops in coordination with the defense ministry.
Those troops “will begin direct intervention in the area to resolve the conflict, stop the clashes, impose security, pursue those responsible for the incidents, and refer them to the competent judiciary,” an interior ministry statement said.
Syrian state-run media outlet SANA earlier said the security forces had deployed on the administrative borders between Daraa and Sweida provinces in light of the situation.
Sweida Governor Mustapha al-Bakur called on his constituents to “exercise self-restraint and respond to national calls for reform.”
Several Syrian Druze spiritual leaders have also called for calm and asked Damascus to intervene.
Due to the violence, the education ministry announced the postponement of Sweida’s official secondary school exams due on Monday to a future date.
Syria’s pre-civil war Druze population numbered around 700,000, with Sweida province home to the sect’s largest community.
Bedouin and Druze factions have a longstanding feud in Sweida, and violence occasionally erupts between the two.
The interior ministry said the violence was “the result of unfortunate armed clashes that broke out between local military groups and clans... against a backdrop of accumulated tensions over previous periods.”
