Red Cross enters Sweida for first time since deadly clashes

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday its team was able to gain access to Syria's southern city of Sweida, where fighting broke out this month.

The team, which joined a Syrian Arab Red Crescent humanitarian convoy sent to the city on Monday, was able to assess where the most pressing needs lie, the ICRC said.

The convoy was carrying 1,000 food hampers as well as 200 tonnes of food, household items for people displaced by the fighting, and medicine, a Sarc official told The National. It was the third such convoy to enter the city since clashes subsided last week, and the first to be accompanied by ICRC officials.

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The clashes erupted in early July between Bedouin and Druze factions, following the kidnapping of a Druze trader on a government-controlled road to the north of the city, and escalated into widespread violence, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

Syrian government forces were sent to contain the unrest but Druze militias, who deeply distrust the newly established authorities in Damascus, who they accuse of siding with the Bedouin, mobilised to push them back.

Supplies to Sweida have been severely limited by the conflict between government forces seeking to deploy in the city and local powerbrokers resisting control of the newly established central authorities.

Stephan Sakalian, the head of ICRC's delegation in Syria, said its members “spoke with families, community leaders and health workers to identify what they need most”.

The ICRC members were able to visit the Sarc Sweida branch, as well as the Sweida National and Shahba hospitals. These two health complexes, assisted by the ICRC, received a large influx of people injured or killed following the recent escalation of violence, it said.

The ICRC said it would continue efforts to access Sweida and support the ongoing emergency response of the Sarc to those most in need in the area.