After two days of horrific sectarian riots that claimed 73 lives, Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri on Thursday denounced what he called a “genocidal campaign” against his community.
Following a slew of killings in Syria’s Alawite coastal heartland last month, the upheaval presents a significant threat to the Islamist authorities that overthrew long-time leader Bashar Al Assad in December.
Hijri condemned the violence in Jaramana and Sahnaya, close to Damascus, as a “unjustifiable genocidal campaign” and demanded that “international forces” step in right away to keep the peace and stop these crimes from happening again.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), his comments come after violence broke out between local Druze factions, Syrian security forces, and allied rebels.
According to the Britain-based monitor, which is based on a network of informants in Syria, 30 security forces personnel, 15 Druze minority fighters, and one civilian are among the dead from Jaramana and Sahnaya. Of the 27 Druze gunmen slain in the southern Suweyda province, 23 were killed in a “ambush” on the Suweyda-Damascus route on Wednesday. Forces associated with the ministries of interior and defence and gunmen associated with them carried out the attack” that killed the fighters, the monitor told AFP.
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