30 killed, 100 injured in sectarian clashes in Syria's Sweida

At least 30 people were killed and 100 injured in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida amid escalating sectarian violence between Druze gunmen and Bedouin tribes, according to the country’s interior ministry.

In a report by Reuters, the clashes erupted following a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday along the highway connecting Damascus to Sweida, according to witnesses.

The ministry said its forces will begin direct intervention in Sweida to resolve the conflict, calling on local parties in the Druze city to cooperate with the security forces.

Unlike similar clashes last April — which involved Bedouin fighters and armed Druze residents in Jaramana, southeast of Damascus and later spread to other districts — this is the first time fighting has broken out inside Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze region.

“This is the first time sectarian fighting has erupted within the city of Sweida. The cycle of violence has exploded in a terrifying way, and if it doesn’t end soon, we are heading toward a bloodbath,” said Rayan Marouf, a Druze researcher based in Sweida who runs the Suwayda24 news platform.

The fighting centered in the Maqwas neighbourhood, east of Sweida, which is home to several Bedouin families. The area was reportedly surrounded and later seized by armed Druze groups.

Meanwhile, Bedouin tribesmen launched attacks on Druze villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city, residents said.

A medical source at Sweida’s state hospital confirmed that at least 15 bodies had been brought to the morgue. Around 50 others were injured, with some transferred to the nearby city of Deraa for treatment.

The violence marks the latest in a series of sectarian flashpoints in Syria, where tensions among minority communities have remained high since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December and the rise of new governing authorities. Those concerns have intensified following the killings of hundreds of Alawites in March.

This was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Sweida and one of the most violent episodes since the end of Syria’s civil war last December.