Exclusive – Regime Arrests Hamper Return of Normal Life in Southern Syria

Syrian regime forces at the Nassib border-crossing. (Reuters)
Syrian regime forces at the Nassib border-crossing. (Reuters)
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Exclusive – Regime Arrests Hamper Return of Normal Life in Southern Syria

Syrian regime forces at the Nassib border-crossing. (Reuters)
Syrian regime forces at the Nassib border-crossing. (Reuters)

A year has passed since the Russian-sponsored settlement deal was signed between the Syrian regime and opposition factions regarding southern Syria. The deal was signed after a military operation waged by the regime, with Russia’s backing, in late June 2018.

As a result of the agreement, which saw the return of the regime and withdrawal of opposition factions, southern Syria now lives in relative peace away from the violence in other parts of the war-torn country. This has not however, helped restore normal life in the region. Several issues related to security, services, prisoners and draft dodgers remain pending.

The regime has complied with some stipulations of the deal, while others remain pending, most notably the withdrawal of Iranian militias from the region, the prisoner file and conscription dodgers. The delay in resolving these issues and the regime’s arrests in certain areas have increased tensions and popular anger. Several rallies were staged and anti-regime slogans were once against written on the walls.

One local, Ahmed, said the arrests were the greatest obstacle in restoring trust between the people and state. He also said the fate of several prisoners held by the regime remained unknown.

Since the signing of the settlement in July 2018, the regime has arrested some 500 people.

The quality of services, such as water and electricity, remains varied between areas that were always under regime control and others that were held by the opposition. For example, Daraa city enjoys longer hours of electricity than other areas that only enjoy four or five hours a day.

Despite this, life is returning to normal. Destroyed schools are being renovated, fuel and gas is available at lower prices than before and businesses have been revitalized after the reopening of the Nassib border-crossing with Jordan.

A resident of the Daraa countryside said the settlement with the regime spared the region destruction and more death.

“This time last year, we were forced to flee the military campaign and the horrors of war were getting worse every day,” he remarked. “After the international community abandoned us, the best solution for the region lay in the settlement and attempting to reap as many gains for the area and its people.”

Now, the Russian Fifth Corps and the Maher Assad’s 4th Division are competing to gain new recruits in the area. They are each attempting to lure draft dodgers from opposition factions to their ranks, informing them that by joining, they would be fulfilling their military enlistment duty. The majority have opted to join the Fifth Corps, rather than the division of the brother of regime leader Bashar Assad. Russia offered them pledges that by joining the Fifth Corps, they will receive a monthly salary of $200 and guarantees that they will not be persecuted by the regime.

Sources said thousands of draft dodgers still remain in the South. Some voluntarily joined the regime forces, but as the North again witnessed a flare-up, many chose to desert the military after they were deployed to the frontlines in eastern and northwestern Syria. They opted to remain in Russia-held areas of the settlement where the regime, so far, does not have actual power.

Hussam al-Hourani, an activist from the South, revealed that security chaos once again returned to the area only months after the settlement took effect. He said a clash for power has led to assassinations of figures that are either close to Russia or the Iranian militias and Hezbollah party. The latter groups are seeking to gain ground in the South.

Moreover, anti-regime sentiment began to again rise in the villages and towns of Daraa. The “Popular Resistance” and “Southern Brigades” have claimed several attacks against regime forces. Opinions remain divided over who is behind these factions.



Sudan's Doctors Bear Brunt of War as Healthcare Falls Apart

(FILES) A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman - AFP
(FILES) A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman - AFP
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Sudan's Doctors Bear Brunt of War as Healthcare Falls Apart

(FILES) A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman - AFP
(FILES) A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman - AFP

Sudanese doctor Mohamed Moussa has grown so accustomed to the constant sound of gunfire and shelling near his hospital that it no longer startles him. Instead, he simply continues attending to his patients.

"The bombing has numbed us," the 30-year-old general practitioner told AFP by phone from Al-Nao hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.

Gunfire rattles in the distance, warplanes roar overhead and nearby shelling makes the ground tremble, more than a year and a half into a grinding war between rival Sudanese generals.

Embattled health workers "have no choice but to continue", said Moussa.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 12 million people, creating what the International Rescue Committee aid group has called the "biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded".

The violence has turned the country's hospitals into battlegrounds, placing health workers like Moussa on the frontlines.

Inside Al-Nao's overwhelmed wards, the conflict's toll is staggering.

Doctors say they tend to a harrowing array of injuries: gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, severe burns, shattered bones and amputations -- even among children as young as four months.

The hospital itself has not been spared.

Deadly shelling has repeatedly hit its premises, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which has supported the Al-Nao hospital.

Elsewhere, the situation is just as dire. In North Darfur, a recent drone attack killed nine at the state capital's main hospital, while shelling forced MSF to evacuate its field hospital in a famine-hit refugee camp.

- Medics targeted -

Sudan's healthcare system, already struggling before the war, has now all but crumbled.

Of the 87 hospitals in Khartoum state, nearly half suffered visible damage between the start of the war and August 26 this year, according to satellite imagery provided and analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab and the Sudanese American Physicians Association.

As of October, the World Health Organization had documented 119 confirmed attacks on healthcare facilities across Sudan.

"There is a complete disregard for civilian protection," said Kyle McNally, MSF's humanitarian affairs advisor.

He told AFP that an ongoing "broad-spectrum attack on healthcare" includes "widespread physical destruction, which then reduces services to the floor -- literally and figuratively".

The national doctors' union estimates that in conflict zones across Sudan, up to 90 percent of medical facilities have been forced shut, leaving millions without access to essential care.

Both sides of the conflict have been implicated in attacks on healthcare facilities.

The medical union said that 78 health workers have been killed since the war began, by gunfire or shelling at their workplaces or homes.

"Both sides believe that medical staff are cooperating with the opposing faction, which leads to their targeting," union spokesperson Sayed Mohamed Abdullah told AFP.

"There is no justification for targeting hospitals or medical personnel. Doctors... make no distinction between one patient and another."

- Starvation -

According to the doctors' union, the RSF has raided hospitals to treat their wounded or search for enemies, while the army has conducted air strikes on medical facilities across the country.

On November 11, MSF suspended most activities at Bashair Hospital, one of South Khartoum's few functioning hospitals, after fighters stormed the facility and shot dead another fighter being treated there.

MSF officials say they believe the fighters to be RSF combatants.

In addition to the endless stream of war casualties, Sudan's doctors scramble to respond to another threat: mass starvation.

In a paediatric hospital in Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, malnourished children arrive in droves.

Between mid-August and late October, the small hospital was receiving up to 40 children a day, many in critical condition, according to one doctor.

"Every day, three or four of them would die because their cases were very late stage and complicated, or due to a shortage of essential medicines," said the physician, requesting anonymity for safety concerns.

Sudan has for months teetered on the edge of famine, with nearly 26 million people -- more than half the population -- facing acute hunger, according to the UN.

Adnan Hezam, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said there must be "immediate support in terms of supplies and human resources to medical facilities".

Without it, "we fear a rapid deterioration" in already limited services, he told AFP.

To Moussa, the doctor, some days feel "unbearable".

"But we can't stop," he said.

"We owe it to the people who depend on us."