Rare anti-government protest turns bloody in southern Syria | Syrian war news

Protesters are angry at the Assad government over price hikes, power outages, and food and fuel shortages.

At least two people were killed, including a policeman, when protesters in the southern Syrian city of Sweida stormed a local government building in a rare anti-government protest over price hikes and other economic hardships.

Media and activist group Suwayda 24 and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, confirmed the two deaths on Sunday and said four people were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds in the predominantly Druze city.

As-Suwayda published 24 photos on social media, showing dozens of demonstrators calling for the overthrow of the regime, while the security forces stood guard outside the building.

Other images showed a burning military vehicle and burning tires on the city’s main streets.

“There is a heavy deployment of security forces in the area, and you can still hear gunshots,” Rayan Maalouf, head of the Suweida 24 collective, told the Associated Press.

The Syrian Interior Minister said in a statement that the people who raided the building were armed, destroyed furniture, smashed windows and looted files. The statement said that “a group of outlaws” killed a policeman while trying to storm the police headquarters.

State television said that “law violators” stormed the regional government building and “set fire to official documents and files”.

A rare anti-government protest

Anti-government demonstrations are rare in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad ended a pro-democracy uprising more than a decade ago. Nearly half a million people have been killed and half the country’s population displaced since a peaceful uprising in 2011 turned into a bloody war.

Assad survived, but the conflict has plunged Syria into poverty. Its residents also face food and energy shortages.

Although the province of Sweida, which borders Jordan, has generally been spared the worst of the war, tensions are running high between residents and the Assad regime, and anti-corruption protests have erupted there over the past few years.

The Syrian economy has been hit hard by the long-running war and Western sanctions against Damascus, and the value of the Syrian pound has plummeted.

As-Suwayda and other cities have been hit hard by nationwide electricity rationing and chronic fuel shortages, severely affecting daily life. In recent days the government has announced more austerity measures, including further electricity rationing.

The United Nations says that ninety percent of the population now lives below the poverty line, and 12.4 million people do not have enough to eat.

In February, hundreds of people demonstrated in As-Suwayda to demand better living conditions and democratic governance, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights at the time. Smaller protests have taken place there in 2020.

Nashat al-Atrash, a Druze deputy in the Syrian Parliament, condemned the protesters for raiding the governorate building and called for calm.

“All of Syria is going through an economic crisis,” he said on the Syrian TV channel al-Ikhbariya, claiming that outside powers might try to stoke tensions through demonstrations.