Analysis
Humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria with no help from transitional government
Eyewitnesses report that government security forces are keeping the main roads closed to aid convoys, yet allow hundreds of fighters to stream in. More than 300,000 people are now suffering from hunger and thirst.
Since July 13, Suwayda province has faced an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. Isolated and besieged, cut off from water, electricity and communications, the Druze population has been left alone while armed groups – from across Syria and mostly with the complicity or silence of the “transitional government” in Damascus – ravage village after village. More than 300,000 people are now suffering hunger and thirst, the local Orthodox Patriarchate warned in a social-media appeal.
Eyewitnesses report that government security forces are keeping the main roads closed to aid convoys, yet allow hundreds of fighters to stream in. Those armed men have looted and burned houses and killed civilians – women and children included – in their homes.
“We cannot overlook the horrific massacres our region endured when extremist terrorist groups linked to what is called the transitional government entered. We state this clearly: we will not allow these crimes to be repeated, and we will not accept the presence of extremist forces on Suwayda soil,” the Suwayda Military Council declared.
Abandoned by the state and sealed off from the world, the population resists with scant resources but unbroken will. Hundreds of local fighters hold defensive lines that have twice repelled Bedouin Islamist militias trying to storm the city of Suwayda, most recently on the night of 17–18 July.
Meanwhile, the silence of the media and of international actors deepens the tragedy. Inside the city, the National Hospital has become a mass grave; hundreds of bodies – including children slain in their beds – are stacked in the hallways. Survivors are fleeing toward the rural areas on the south-eastern border.
Local activist Maya issued a plea: “We are asking for help to give voice to our community. We urgently need medicine, food, drinking water – and above all international protection. Our people are dying and the world is looking the other way.” The Druze spiritual leadership echoed her words, calling for an immediate cease-fire, humanitarian corridors, the rapid arrival of international observers and an end to the siege.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is demanding “an independent, prompt and transparent investigation” into every violation committed in southern Syria these past days, stressing the need to protect civilians and halt incitement to hatred. Updated tallies indicate that at least 600 people, many of them non-combatants, have died since last Sunday.
In this chaos, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has announced a full pull-out of government troops from Suwayda “to avoid direct conflict with Israel,” whose jets last Wednesday struck Syria’s Defense Ministry in Damascus and several military sites near Suwayda. Tel Aviv says it seeks to “protect the Druze minority” and insists southern Syria must stay “demilitarized,” referring to the long-contested Golan Heights.
On this point, however, the words of a civil society activist from Suwayda are particularly representative: “We can no longer accept that the Al-Sharaa government is playing both sides: on the one hand, it withdraws to avoid confrontation with Israel, and on the other, it deliberately leaves our province exposed to extremist armed groups, supporting them silently or openly. He is primarily responsible for the double tragedy we are experiencing.”
These statements lay bare the bitter truth for many inhabitants of Suwayda: feeling betrayed by their own government, while being crushed under the rubble of a geopolitical conflict bigger than themselves, despite their unwavering hope for a united, pluralistic, and peaceful Syria. But after what has happened, many know that nothing will ever be the same again.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-martoriata-suwayda-tra-resistenza-popolare-e-disastro-umanitario on 2025-07-19