CAIRO, July 16. /TASS/. Syria’s Druze and other residents of the province of Suwayda have asked Kurdish units active in the country’s east to provide them with humanitarian corridors, Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said.

"We are receiving requests from our fellow citizens in Suwayda asking us to ensure safe corridors for civilians and stop aggression against them. The killings of women and children, as well as the destruction of places of worship, are crimes against humanity, which run counter to the values of Syrians as a nation and must end immediately," he wrote on the X social media platform. He stressed that in his view, "the time has come to stop the bloodshed" in Syria. Abdi called for bringing all those responsible for the crimes committed in Suwayda to justice.

The SDF commander is confident that "the Druze issue can only be resolved through diplomatic and political means." "Syria can revive through dialogue and a rational approach, not revenge," the Kurdish coalition’s leader added.

The SDF leader made the statement the next day after reports came that the Syrian government forces that had entered Suwayda, largely populated by the Druze, were allegedly humiliating members of the religious minority and even executed several people. The Syrian authorities did not officially comment on the reports, but the country’s interim president vowed on July 16 to investigate all violations of the civilian rights in the province of Suwayda and hold those responsible to account.

Clashes between Arab militia and Druze self-defense units broke out in the province of Suwayda on July 13. On July 15, the Syrian army entered the eponymous city and launched a mop-up operation in order to stabilize the situation. Soon after that, Israel started carrying out strikes on the Syrian army’s military columns, citing the need to protect the Druze population.

The Druze are an Arabic-speaking ethnic and religious group residing in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.Syria has 700,000 Druze, who are the country’s third largest ethnic and religious minority after the Kurds and the Alawites.