Syria’s de facto government has established a committee to probe civilian deaths during the recent ethnic clashes involving Druze and Bedouin Tribes. The officials confirmed that incidents of violence last month in Suwayda province, which killed hundreds, displaced tens of thousands, and risked destabilising the country's fragile postwar transition, will be investigated, and those responsible will be held to account.
Unlike the Taliban, which has established a firm grip on Afghanistan, the Syrian government, despite being recognised by the US, has not been able to establish authority in the country. The fighting last month started when Druze blamed a local tribal group for the kidnapping of a merchant from the Suwayda highway.
While the unconfirmed videos show tribal men humiliating and killing the Druze fighters, the other version of reports suggests that the Druze had launched an attack on the Bedouin tribe, which retaliated with brute force.
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Meanwhile, Syria’s justice ministry said the committee would work to uncover the “circumstances that led to the events in Suwayda," investigate attacks and refer those implicated in them to the judiciary, reports said. In the earlier March violence, when clashes between the factions loyal to Assad led to a massive attack on the Syrian government forces, hundreds of people lost their lives.
The committee investigating the incident found that there had been “widespread, serious violations against civilians,” including by members of Syria's new security forces and that more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, were killed. Syria is transitioning from the post-war wounds that, according to global estimates, killed between “700,000 and nearly 1 million people, displacing 13.5 million people since the onset of the 2011 civil war.”
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