Name: Fighting Druze in Syria could return, Bedouins tell BBC | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-07-21T17:16:54.000Z
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To Syria now, where residents in the southern city of Suwayda have told the BBC there is a tense calm in the city following seven days of violent sectarian clashes.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in clashes between the Bedouin and Druze communities.

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But despite some reports of attacks, a ceasefire enforced by the Syrian government largely appears to be holding.

Correspondent John Donison travelled to the area around Suwayda, around 100km south of the capital Damascus, and sent this report.

In Suwayda province, a show of force and defiance, hundreds of Bedouin gunmen firing wildly by the roadside.

Holding them back, Syrian government troops sent south to enforce a ceasefire.

This here is the last government checkpoint before Suwayda, but all afternoon, Bedouin gunmen have been massing on this road.

Now they say that they have stuck to the ceasefire deal, but they say if they don't get their hostages out, get the sick, the injured out, then they're going to go back in.

And this Bedouin leader told me it wasn't over.

If the Druze don't commit to the deal, we will re-enter Suwayda again, he said, even if it becomes our cemetery.

Eventually we did see some ambulances being allowed to enter the city, where hundreds of people have been killed and wounded.

And earlier this morning, the first aid convoy was allowed to head towards Suwayda city, now under full Druze control.

But there's no electricity or running water and food is in short supply.

And those who've got out of Suwayda, the UN says 130,000 have been displaced, are also in need.

At this schoolyard turned makeshift shelter, Bedouin families are waiting for aid.

I asked Tanea Rameh Saifan whether Druze and Bedouin could ever live side by side again.

No, absolutely not, she said, as the crowd backed her up.

You can't trust the Druze, they're traitors.

With such a level of distrust then, this is a fragile truce.

The gunmen may be pulling back for now, but Syria is far from united.

John Donison, BBC News, in Suwayda province.

Walina Sinjab is in Damascus, where she gave us the latest on this tense ceasefire.

Well, apparently it's still holding so far until the early hours of the morning, which is something really positive after almost a week of really tense and violent attacks that left over a thousand killed, mainly from the Druze community.

So far, the Syrian Ministry of Interior have also announced that some of the tribal families who were in Suwayda have been evacuated and they've managed to secure a safe passage for them.

The Druze are saying that there have been a lot of missing people.

They put out a list of at least 80 missing women and they're still trying to see where are they.

Thousands have fled villages around Suwayda and have been displaced.

Now the Druze community as well, they've allowed in yesterday a convoy from the Syrian Red Cross to Suwayda to get supplies.

But at the moment, it's the early hours of the morning.

We're still watching how this ceasefire agreement is going to unfold.

Mainly it is divided into three phases, a halt of hostilities, government forces to enter Suwayda, arrange for safe passages for civilians to be treated, evacuated, and then for the government to restore its presence inside Suwayda, something the Druze are rejecting until this moment because they put the whole responsibility of the killing and massacres that took place inside Suwayda on government forces.

And this is a huge test for this fledgling government to try and maintain peace across this vast and tribally fractured country.

And, you know, observers to the situation, you know, if you know the history of Syria, the Bedouins, the tribes have always shifted alliances depending on the power structure.

In the past, they worked for Hafez al-Assad to crush the Kurds.

They worked for Bashar al-Assad in the past 10 years to crush different, you know, opposition, including the Druze.

They entered Suwayda under the flag of ISIS at some point.

So, you know, they've always like played with their alliances.

And many people are wondering why the leadership of al-Shara would allow something like this to happen over a dispute of, you know, food container to reach a large scale of killing that is, you know, over 1,000 people, mostly civilians who've been killed.

And the Druze historically as well, they've opposed dictatorship.

In the past decade, they refused to join the army.

They said they will not be part of the killing machine against Syrians.

And today, they feel that now they're being prosecuted simply because of their religion.

But the real reason for this attack, they say, is that the government have used this incident and used the tribal forces so that they can spread their power over this province.