Almost 600 killed in recent south Syria violence, monitoring group says | BBC News

A monitoring group said 594 people have been killed during the recent violence in southern Syria that took on a sectarian dimension.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) documented a significant outbreak of brutality in the killings that have gripped Suweida province since Sunday.

Three hundred members of the Druze religious minority were killed, including 146 fighters and 154 civilians, 83 of whom were "summarily executed" by government forces, the SOHR said on Thursday evening.

The fighting was sparked by a dispute between the Bedouin and Druze communities.

Another 15 government personnel were reportedly killed in Israeli air strikes, which Israel said it carried out to protect the Druze and make the government forces withdraw from Suweida.

It was not immediately possible to verify the SOHR’s figures.

However, security sources put the toll at 300 and another monitoring group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of at least 169 civilians.

The Syrian government announced a ceasefire on Wednesday evening ahead of its withdrawal however, one prominent Druze leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, rejected it, calling for further fighting until the "total liberation of our province from gangs", referring to government forces.

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