A year of false starts, bloodshed, shifting balances of power and foreign intervention has produced a complicated landscape in Druze-majority Suwayda, one in which the voices calling for secession and self-rule are growing louder.
Nearly 11 months since the fall of the regime, simmering insecurity and uncontrolled weapons continue to destabilize communities and claim lives in Syria’s southern Daraa province.
Caught between the Suwayda crisis to the east and Israeli incursions to the west, Daraa grapples with new security, economic and social challenges.
Suwayda has established a temporary office to run the province independently from the central government, while activists press forward with civil initiatives they hope could ease tensions and pave a path forward.
Druze and Bedouin families are united in pain, if little else, reeling with uncertainty and loss after days of deadly violence in Suwayda.
Activists in Suwayda who were once open to the Damascus government weigh in on how their views have changed following a wave of sectarian violence—and whether any path forward remains.
Bedouin tribal fighters clashed with Druze forces in Syria’s southern Suwayda province on Friday, one day after reported revenge attacks in the wake of a government withdrawal touched off a new wave of sectarian violence.
The Syrian army began to withdraw from Suwayda city on Wednesday night local time, following two days of clashes with local Druze forces that killed and injured hundreds and provided an opening for expanded Israeli intervention.
University students who returned to Druze-majority Suwayda during recent sectarian tensions on their campuses were stopped by a local armed group as they tried to go back to school last week. Some fear education is being politicized amid tensions with Damascus.
After a short-lived period of calm, clashes returned to Suwayda province on Tuesday, raising questions about the durability of a recent security agreement and the risk of a new wave of violence in southern Syria.
