Eight months after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad, interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has failed to bring stability or unity to Syria’s diverse ethnic landscape. His forces continue to clash with minority groups and at the start of the year, Alawite communities came under attack.
The government in Damascus has also been unable to protect the country’s Christians. Now, in southern Syria, over 1,000 people have been killed in just one week during violent clashes between Sunni Muslims and the Druze community.
RTL spoke with members of the Druze diaspora in Luxembourg about the deadly violence.
The heavy fighting of recent days has temporarily ceased, but the current calm remains extremely fragile. For now, the Syrian military is blocking Bedouin militias from the Suwayda region in an effort to prevent further massacres against the Druze.
Just last week, those same forces had been fighting alongside the Sunni Bedouins against the Druze minority. Druze in Luxembourg with roots in southern Syria say they have spent recent days desperately trying to reach family and friends still living there, with little to no information getting through.
Rima Naser, a Druze woman originally from Suwayda, explained that she was able to get in touch with her cousin. According to her, around 50 people – including children – were killed in the streets of her village, and several women were abducted.
Recent images from Suwayda have horrified the local community. Bodies lie in the streets. The regime led by Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus is now seen by the Druze in Luxembourg as revealing its true radical islamist nature.
Ezzat Aljourdie, a Druze man from Suwayda, believes there is a deliberate campaign to wipe out ethnic minorities in Syria, starting with the Alawites. Referring to interim president al-Sharaa’s past ties to the Islamist terrorist group, Aljourdie remarked that someone who comes from Al-Qaeda will never change.
He added that, at this point, he does not believe anyone in Suwayda is willing to accept the current government. While there may once have been a chance for reconciliation, he said, that hope has been shattered by the devastation inflicted on the city and its people.
Critics accuse the interim president of failing to reunify the country and instead working to establish a new Sunni caliphate – while the European Union stands by and watches. For the Druze community, the dream of a united Syria appears to have died.
