Displacement of Bedouin Tribes from Suweida Governorate

In July, Bedouin tribes from Suweida were displaced outside the context of historic Druze-Bedouin longstanding disputes. The displacement of Bedouins in July was tied to the involvement of security and military actors who provoked recurring crises on the Damascus-Suweida road. These incidents escalated into clashes between Bedouin groups and Druze factions, leading to violations of housing, land, and property rights. Defence and interior ministry forces later entered under the pretext of ‘resolving the conflict,’ after which evacuation towards Daraa began.

The Bedouin are part of the social fabric of Suweida, having settled for decades in different areas on the outskirts of Druze-majority towns and villages, as well as in villages of their own. A formal document issued by the Civil Registry Department in Suweida on December 31, 2023, signed by former governor Bassam Mamdouh Barsik (in office July 2022 – May 2024), recorded the governorate’s total population at 569,861, including around 33,122 Bedouins.

However, their traditionally nomadic lifestyle has affected their stability and their housing, land, and property rights. Most Bedouin residential areas on the outskirts of Suweida city are informal settlements, built on public or private property in unzoned areas. As with informal settlements elsewhere in Syria, these houses are largely undocumented in official land records, though their owners often possess other forms of proof of ownership, such as court rulings or property sale contracts. The situation is relatively better in the villages where they live, as their property rights are more organised and registered with the land authorities, similar to other residents of those villages.

The conflict between the Bedouin and Druze communities in Suweida is not new, often recurring during harvest seasons when herders, typically from Bedouin tribes, graze their livestock on Druze farmers’ grain fields before they are harvested. The root of the conflict has historically been linked to the two different production modes of herding and farming, but it has usually been resolved through shared social customs and traditions.

Since Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) came to power in Damascus in December 2024, relations with the Druze appeared politically strained. The violations committed against Alawites, another religious minority, in the coastal area this past March heightened Druze fears and made it more difficult to enforce their disarmament. Clashes erupted between the two sides in April in Ashrafiyat Sehnaya outside Damascus, as well as in northern Suweida, also leading to violations of housing, land, and property rights. These confrontations led to a May 1 agreement between the transitional administration and Druze religious authorities, which stipulated that the public security forces would be composed of people from Suweida, while responsibility for securing the Damascus-Suweida highway would lie with the transitional administration.

In May, an armed group from the Bedouin tribes of Al-Lajat, under the Ministry of Interior’s public security branch, set up a checkpoint on the Damascus-Suweida highway. The checkpoint became notorious for repeated violations, including verbal and physical assaults, frequent gunfire, days-long road closures, and arrests of Druze travelers.

Tensions soon spilled into Suweida after an attack on July 11 in which a Druze merchant was robbed at the checkpoint. This incident led to a series of kidnappings between Druze and Bedouin groups in the Al-Maqous neighbourhood, in the northeast of Suweida city. Although the issue was formally resolved through social customs, with hostages exchanged overnight on July 12-13, the situation soon escalated out of control. At dawn on July 14, a Druze security cell loyal to the transitional administration opened fire without warning on Al-Maqous, where the majority of residents were Bedouin with a small Druze minority. A Bedouin security group, also affiliated with the transitional administration, returned fire. Intense clashes quickly erupted in the neighbourhood, resulting in ten dead and numerous homes burned. Armed Bedouin groups from the informal neighbourhoods of Al-Mashourib and Al-Haroubi, on the outskirts of Suweida, soon joined the clashes.

According to testimonies, Druze fighters burned several Bedouin homes in Al-Maqous and made direct threats at gunpoint to force families to leave. The violence in Al-Maqous was not limited to Bedouin homes and properties: armed Bedouin groups targeted Druze houses in the neighbourhood, shooting at them, then looting and burning them. The same happened with shops and warehouses, resulting in multiple civilian deaths on both sides.

On July 15, defence and interior ministry forces entered Al-Maqous under the pretext of “resolving the conflict.” According to sources that preferred to remain anonymous, these forces supplied weapons and ammunition to the armed tribal groups in the neighbourhood. The ministries’ forces could not reach Al-Maqous until they had taken control of most of the governorate’s western and northern countryside and parts of Suweida city, committing systematic violations against the Druze population. They killed around 2,000 people, displacing around 150,000, and destroying or burning 34 villages.

Bedouin tribes in Al-Haroubi, Al-Mashourib, and Al-Maqous, whose fighters had taken part in the clashes, withdrew on July 16 as government forces retreated from Suweida, fearing revenge attacks. After their withdrawal, evidence emerged of mutual killings, looting, and arson in the neighbourhood. This was followed by violations incited by another Druze security group affiliated with the transitional administration against civilians from the Shahba tribes, killing 20 people. The Druze spiritual leadership immediately condemned these acts, calling for a ban on attacks against civilians, which helped contain the situation. On July 16, U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack brokered an agreement with Saudi, Turkish, and Jordanian mediation, to evacuate Bedouin tribes from crossing points between Suweida and Daraa.

Abu Nayef, a 45-year-old displaced Bedouin man from Al-Maqous, told The Syria Report: “We were not part of any armed conflict. We lived alongside our Druze neighbours for years, but suddenly an armed Druze group began threatening us and accusing us of treason. Three houses were burned down in one night. It was clear they wanted to drive us out, not just act on impulse.”

M.F., a 27-year-old man from the Bedouin community, recounted: “When the threats started, we sought refuge in the mosque, where we found protection from local residents. Not all Druze people were against us – on the contrary, many stood by us, but some groups deliberately tried to create division.”

Firas, a Druze fighter, said: “I drove my car towards Al-Maqous, and as the clashes intensified, I saw [Bedouin] women and children fleeing towards the city centre. I made several trips back and forth to evacuate as many as I could to the mosque in Suweida city.”

On July 21,hundreds of Bedouin civilians began evacuating Suweida under a tense truce, Reuters reported at the time. Figures published by the Associated Press on the same day indicated that a government plan aimed to evacuate around 1,500 people to Daraa, where many settled in Nahteh and Busra Al-Harir amid overcrowding and shortages of water and bread. Reuters images and reports showed that schools in the village of Al-Sahwa in rural Daraa were used as temporary shelters for families fleeing Suweida. UNICEF confirmed on August 2 that services were scarce, reporting that more than 25,000 people were living in 63 temporary collective shelters in Daraa.

A September 6 report by the Associated Press described displaced Bedouin families from Suweida still living in classrooms in the town of Ibtaa, rural Daraa, with three or four families sharing a single room. Women and children slept inside the rooms while men slept in the courtyard. With schools set to reopen later this month, these families did not know where they would go next. In Sayyida Zainab, rural Damascus, a displaced person said food aid was inconsistent, they had no home to return to, and feared finding strangers occupying their houses.

The Damascus-Suweida road incident, followed by the clashes in Al-Maqous, transformed recurring local tensions into a trajectory of displacement and evacuation, accompanied by the targeting of property. With displaced people on both sides and the transitional administration still controlling 34 Druze villages and preventing residents’ return, the conditions for the safe return of Bedouin tribes to the governorate remain highly complex. Any lasting de-escalation will require separating security forces’ involvement from the local conflict and ensuring civilian protection that restores respect for housing, land, and property rights.