'We will never go back': Bedouin families forced into permanent exile after Sweida violence

Khitam Hawarin, an 18-year-old Bedouin from the town of Shahba in Syria's Druze-majority province of Sweida, said she lay soaked in her own blood for more than an hour.

She recalls watching helplessly as her mother’s corpse burnt beside her, after Druze fighters had opened fire on her family.

The assailants killed her mother, her aunt, her uncle’s wife, her grandmother and two cousins, including one who was only six years old, as they hid behind a stone wall.

Red Cross enters Sweida for first time since deadly clashes

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“Everyone died, except for me,” she said two weeks later, her arm and leg wrapped in white gauze, her movements sluggish with pain and grief.

The young Syrian survived only because Druze neighbours intervened, taking her to a nearby hospital. “They told people I was their daughter and changed my name so no one would know I was Bedouin,” she said. Armed men from Druze factions had been roaming the hospital, threatening to kill any Bedouin they found.

“There are good Druze and bad Druze,” Khitam said candidly. “The ones who attacked us were armed. The ones who saved me weren’t.” She spoke little, still visibly in shock, her brown eyes heavy with sorrow.

Khitam and her family were evacuated days later in a humanitarian convoy. The girl, who was supposed to take her baccalaureate exam this summer, is now living in a classroom in Izraa, in Syria’s Deraa governorate, as a displaced person. She no longer sees a future for herself.

The school is one of 64 displacement centres hosting thousands of families who fled the vicious sectarian violence that erupted two weeks ago between Druze militants and armed Bedouin.

What began as retaliatory attacks between two long-standing rivals escalated rapidly, as Syrian troops entered the fray on July 16. Druze factions, who distrust the new authorities led by a now-disarmed rebel group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, accused Syrian forces of siding with Sunni Bedouin and mobilised to repel them.

The violence soon engulfed the entire Sweida region, killing more than 1,300 people, including civilians from both sides, general security forces, tribesmen and Druze gunmen, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.

Though a ceasefire between Druze leaders and Damascus was announced on July 19, civilians are still reeling from the conflict and the situation remains unstable.

No return

Though Druze civilians were the primary targets of the sectarian clashes, Bedouin families were also subjected to summary executions, according to testimonies gathered on the ground. The National could not independently verify all witness accounts.

Bedouin families accused the faction aligned with Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri, the influential Druze religious leader and vocal critic of Syrian authorities, of being behind the violations.

Sweida governorate, home to about 700,000 people, includes a small Bedouin minority. Families interviewed by The National said they had lived peacefully alongside their Druze neighbours for years. They described the recent violence as a turning point, one that is irreversible.

“This is a departure with no return. It’s truly a change in the religious and cultural make-up of the region,” Cedric Labrousse, a specialist in Syrian affairs, told The National.

“If you remove those who left voluntarily, those who were evacuated in recent days, and those still trying to flee, there won’t be many Bedouin left here in a few weeks. Most Bedouin homes have been burnt. So even if they return, where would they go?”

He said what had long been a localised feud between some Druze armed groups and certain Bedouin factions has now taken on a deeply sectarian dimension.

“It wasn’t really there before, but now it’s been implanted and it will stay in people’s minds,” Mr Labrousse warned. “Just imagine what Bedouin children will think of the Druze after this. And imagine what Druze children will think of the Bedouin in 20 years.”

Hind, Khitam’s sister, said she saw a missile tear a child apart. “His head flew one way, his body another, right in front of my eyes,” she said. “We can’t go back. There’s no way we can ever return." Their home has been looted and burnt down.

Meanwhile, in a Druze-majority village, tribal fighters daubed graffiti on walls that read “down with the collaborators, down with the Druze pigs”.

In Sweida, The National also collected harrowing accounts from Druze civilians who survived attacks and summary executions, which they said were committed by Syrian troops and tribal gunmen.

“I don’t see how trust between the two communities can ever be restored,” Mr Labrousse said.

Marginalised community

Mr Labrousse said the conflict between some Druze and Bedouin started as a trade rivalry. “For years, Sweida has relied on smuggling, drugs, fuel, weapons … control over trafficking routes has always been critical, even before the civil war,” he said.

He said that during the civil war, the smuggling business, particularly Captagon trafficking, expanded significantly, involving Druze and Bedouin groups. Their alliances often shifted, with groups alternating between business partners and rivals.

He said that after former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad was toppled in December, many cartels, storage sites and Captagon warehouses were dismantled.

“This led to the collapse of the informal economy, the main source of livelihood in marginalised Sweida. Druze and Bedouin groups began fighting over a shrinking pool of resources, further fuelling tensions."

But this time the feud took on a sectarian dimension. On one hand, “the Bedouin have been gradually pushed to the margins of Druze society,” Mr Labrousse explained. “The Druze had organised themselves, with their own local administration, while the Bedouin felt increasingly excluded, neglected, and marginalised.”

On the other hand, the Druze remain distrustful of the new Syrian government, citing its Sunni Islamist roots, and view the new Syrian government as more sympathetic to the Bedouin.

The Druze are a minority religious group that emerged from a branch of Islam, with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Some hardline Sunni Muslims consider them heretics.

Their distrust has deepened as the Syrian Ministry of Defence continues to struggle to rein in a patchwork of factions, some of them radical, despite pledges of unification. In March, nearly 1,500 mostly Alawite citizens, the minority sect to which Mr Al Assad belongs, were killed violence, reportedly involving groups recently integrated into the army.

At the start of the recent clashes, thousands of tribesmen from across Syria deployed to Sweida to support Bedouin fighters opposing Druze factions. “Some of them had clear sectarian motives,” Mr Labrousse said. They stayed in the area for days despite calls from President Ahmad Al Shara to withdraw.

'I can’t trust anyone'

Assaf Mohammad Dahmash, a Bedouin man at a displacement centre, said he would never return to Sweida, a place he had called home since 2016 when he fled from ISIS in Deir Ezzor.

“They’re capable of doing bad things. Not all of them, some are truly good people. But I don’t think anyone can trust any more,” he said. “It’s become pure sectarianism. Like, if they see a Sunni, they will slaughter them. I heard a sheikh say that with my own ears."

He said he had good relationships with his Druze neighbours in Sweida, whom he may never see again. “I called my friend yesterday, we’ve known each other since 2016. We used to eat and drink coffee together. He was crying on the phone. His house was looted and his car was burnt. He told me to come back to Sweida but it’s impossible.”

A member of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society, which has been providing humanitarian assistance at one of the shelter centres, said the number of displaced people was still rising and there is no plan for what comes next.

In the displacement centres, families are too shocked to even think about it.

“People here have no hope, no ambition. They just want shelter, wherever it may be,” Mr Dahmash said.