Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were bussed out of Syria’s mainly Druze city of Sweida on Monday under a US-backed ceasefire aimed at halting days of fighting between Bedouin tribesmen and Druze militants that witnesses said has killed scores of people.
The head of Syria’s Supreme Council of Tribes and Clans said on Monday that hundreds of the Arab families who began leaving the southern city of Sweida were undertaking a “temporary displacement” to allow the army to secure the area, rejecting accusations of a wholesale forced exodus.
Sheikh Mudar Hamad al‑Asaad told Asharq al‑Awsat daily that homes belonging to Arab Bedouin families in several Sweida neighborhoods had been burned, looted and wrecked during recent unrest.
“The streets are blocked and the houses are uninhabitable,” he said. “The departure is only until the army and internal security forces can restore order across the city and its outlying villages.”
State news agency SANA said earlier that the Interior Ministry had brokered an agreement allowing “all civilians who wish to leave Sweida because of the current conditions” to do so until their safe return can be guaranteed. Buses began moving families from Sweida at dawn on Monday.
Asaad dismissed social‑media claims that the transfers amounted to sectarian “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs from the Druze‑majority province.
“Electronic trolls are stirring up sedition,” he said. “The aim is to prolong the dispute between the government, the militias of Sheikh Hikmat al‑Hijri and the Arab tribes, and to push the region towards instability.”
He accused “remnants of the Assad regime, PKK elements, arms and narcotics traffickers – and Hijri himself – of exploiting the chaos” to carve out a Druze‑run enclave.
Asaad said most of the evacuees were women and children from farming and trading families who had fled other parts of Syria during the civil war.
The tribal leader denied the withdrawal was a capitulation. He said the clans had agreed to leave only after a presidential statement urged them to quit the flashpoint areas.
“Without that order, the tribes would be in complete control of Sweida today,” he said, adding that Druze elders and local political figures had also asked them to help stop Hijri’s “destructive project”.
Arabs have lived in Sweida “since before Islam” and make up roughly 30 percent of the province’s population, alongside Syriac Christians (just over 10 percent) and Druze who settled in the 11th century, Asaad said.
He estimated that more than 150,000 young tribesmen had mobilized during the recent flare‑up. According to Asaad, the tribes back the Syrian army’s deployment in Sweida and want all weapons – whether held by Druze, tribes or others – placed under state control.
“The clans seek to spread peace among the Syrian people, settle disputes and bury sectarian strife,” he said.
“We stand with all components of Syrian society and have no ambition to replace the state, only to defend the gains of the Syrian revolution and support national stability.”
