Evacuations begin in Syria’s Sweida as days of deadly clashes ease

By Ghaith Alsayed and Kareem Chehayeb

Syria‘s government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the southern city of Sweida, where deadly fighting between Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters has largely stopped as a ceasefire takes told.

Last week’s clashes killed hundreds and threatened to unravel Syria’s fragile postwar transition. They also led to sectarian attacks against the Druze religious minority, followed by revenge attacks against the Sunni Muslim Bedouins. The U.N. International Organization for Migration said 128,571 people were displaced.

Neighboring Israel also launched dozens of airstrikes in Druze-majority Sweida province, targeting government forces who effectively sided with the Bedouins.

Syrian state media on Sunday said the government had coordinated with officials in Sweida to bring buses to evacuate some 1,500 Bedouins. Syrian Interior Minister Ahmad al-Dalati told the state-run news agency that the initiative also would allow civilians displaced from Sweida to return.

Druze civilians were expected to be evacuated from other areas, but those had