a day ago
‘They executed him then called his wife to brag': Inside the Druze city ravaged by militias
Dr Talat Amer, a surgeon at Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria, worked tirelessly for three days as bombs fell and the building came under siege from government and militia forces.
On the fourth day of fighting in the Druze-majority city, Dr Amer was shot in the head as he tried to return to work.
'He was dressed in scrubs and they executed him. Then they called his wife on his phone and bragged about it,' Sami, a surgeon at the hospital, told The Telegraph. Witnesses reported it was regime forces wearing Islamic State badges on their military fatigues.
The fighting that has consumed the region started on July 13 as a local dispute between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes but quickly escalated into deadly clashes. Syrian government forces deployed to the region to quell the violence instead became embroiled in it, drawing in Israeli intervention.
Syrian soldiers, many of whom came from former jihadist ranks, are accused of aligning with other militias and attacking Druze fighters and civilians, carrying out a bloody rampage across the city.
After six days of terror, the death toll is estimated to be more than 900, but confirmation will take time as bodies are recovered and identified.
Despite an 'immediate and comprehensive' US-brokered ceasefire being declared between Syria and Israel on Saturday in Sweida – it is failing to hold. Multiple witnesses say militias are still attacking villages and the city.
Sami, who is currently hiding with his family and speaking under a pseudonym for fear of retribution, was working at the hospital on Tuesday when he said government forces attacked.
'We saw the soldiers and the bombs were landing on the hospital, we hid but then tried to continue treating patients. Then we lost electricity and water,' he recounted.
He was not there on Wednesday when Syrian soldiers were alleged to have detained the doctors and nurses in the operating rooms. 'They killed a maintenance man and told the doctors they would be executed at 6pm.'
The soldiers were forced to withdraw and his colleagues escaped, Sami said, but he still does not know how many staff were killed during the attack on the hospital.
Videos filmed inside the building show corpses piled up in hallways, blood-soaked floors, rooms stacked with body bags and a chaotic makeshift morgue set up outside.
When Sami reached the hospital on Thursday, passing civilian bodies littering the roads nearby, he found a Syrian tank at its front entrance – and more bodies. 'It looked like a massacre,' he said.
'The hospital was partly destroyed, there were a lot of bodies put on top of each other. We still do not know who is dead. I haven't been able to make contact with all of my colleagues.'
The surgeon estimates that there are 400 bodies at the hospital. Most are piled outside in the back yard because the morgue ran out of space. 'I think they will reach 1,000 soon. We do not have time to identify them or bury them' he said.
Syria's leadership has vowed to punish those who committed 'heinous acts' against Druze civilians, but its control appears shaky and Sweida's residents fear authorities are unable to provide security.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian president has vowed to protect the Druze minority, but his forces have been accused of executing them in the street.
Nawaf Al-Shabli, a medical doctor who lives on the outskirts of Sweida, described feeling powerless as he heard that his friends and colleagues might be being killed inside the National Hospital.
He is trapped inside his own village on the outskirts of Sweida, which he said is still under attack from neighbouring Bedouin tribes and Arab militia groups.
'You cannot imagine the horrors,' Dr al-Shabli, who is also a prominent peace activist, told The Telegraph. 'These are my friends, they were so innocent. All the world will be shocked when it comes to light what happened,' he said.
Dr al-Shabli has been distributing food and aid to his neighbours. 'I am trying to help, but there is nothing, no electricity, no clean water, no medicine. All the villages have been burnt around us.'
When the violence broke out last week, he said many villagers fled to Sweida, where they believed they would be safe. Some were killed, he said, and those that returned are traumatised.
'They came from all directions, all roads, with all resources and heavy weaponry. They wanted to destroy the Druze, they oppose our beliefs.'
The Druze, whose religion is rooted in Islam but do not identify as Muslim have faced a history of persecution.
The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly one million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.
In Israel, the Druze are seen as a loyal minority and often serve in the military. In Syria, the Druze have been divided over how to deal with the country's new leaders, with some advocating for integrating into the new system while others have remained suspicious of the authorities in Damascus and pushed for an autonomous Druze region.
'We are peaceful,' he said. 'We do not usually fight, we want to help others. Our saying is to 'hurt no one, love all, serve all'.'
Inside the city, residents are pleading for help from the outside community, saying that aid is not reaching them as militias have blocked all the roads.
'The situation is very bad, this is a disaster, we are asking for a humanitarian corridor to open up,' Kinan Azzam, a dentist who lives in the east of Sweida city, told The Telegraph.
He described seeing bodies all over the streets and hearing of Druze women and children kidnapped, while parents were killed in their homes in front of their children.
On Friday, Mr Azzam learnt that his friend, an engineer, had been taken by regime forces and killed. 'He was a very good person, they kidnapped him and killed him in a bad way and left him.'
Now, he said the fresh ceasefire agreement – the second this week after an earlier agreement on Wednesday quickly collapsed – is being broken continuously.
'Please we need help, time is running out, why isn't anyone helping us?'
Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East security analyst at the Rusi think tank, told The Telegraph: 'The ceasefire remains extremely fragile.'
She said a range of armed groups, operating beyond the control of the government and driven by divergent agendas, are converging on the area 'in anticipation of renewed conflict'.
Ms Ozcelik added: 'This escalation must be urgently contained.'
There have also been reports of attacks on the small Bedouin communities, – who are predominantly Sunni Muslim – in Sweida and what Syrian media outlets called massacres by 'outlaw groups'.
The deadly violence, the worst in this corner of Syria since the height of the country's nearly 14 year civil war, has underscored the challenge the new Islamist regime is facing stabilising the country and exerting centralised rule.
The interim government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, has tried and so far failed to unite Syria's diverse religious and ethnic factions since the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in December.
The former al-Qaeda leader turned statesman has promised tolerance and acceptance, authorities have been accused repeatedly of trampling over the rights of the country's diverse minorities.
Col (res) Hamada Ganem, a Druze former commander of the IDF's Northern Brigade in the Gaza Strip, questioned why the Druze militias would heed their de-facto control of Sweida to the government.
'Why would they put down their arms when they cannot trust the unstable regime to protect them? Everyone takes the law into their own hands and the Druze are suffering,' he told The Telegraph.
'The Druze want peace, they want to be part of Syria, but they need protection. Al-Sharaa speaks two languages: one of peace and accountability, while the other is spoken by his forces that attack the Druze.'
