Damascus, Syria (AP) – Images of security cameras in a hospital in the city of Sweida in southern Syria, which was published on Sunday, showed what seems to be the murder of a medical employee by men in military robes.
The video published by activist Media Collective Suwayda 24 was dated 16 July, during intense collisions between militias of the Druze Minority Community and armed tribal groups and government forces.
In the video, which was also shared on social media on a large scale, a large group of people in scrubs can be seen kneeling on the floor for a group of armed men. The armed men grab a man and hit him on the head as if they were going to arrest him. The man tries to resist by struggling with one of the shooters, before being shot with an attack gun and then a second time by another person with a gun.
A man in a dark jumpsuit with “internal security forces” written on it seems to be the men in Camouflage to the hospital.
Another security camera shows a tank that is stationed outside the facility.
Activist media groups say that the shooters came from the Syrian military and security forces.
A Syrian government official said that they could not immediately identify the attackers in the video and investigate the incident to try to find out whether they are affiliated staff or shooters of tribal groups by the government.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not immediately acquitted to talk about the media.
The government has set up a committee in charge of investigating attacks on citizens during sectarian violence in the south of the country, which should issue a report within three months.
The incident in the Sweida National Hospital further worsens the tensions between the Druze -lessness community and the Syrian government, after collisions in July between Druze and armed Bedouin groups led to intended sectarian attacks on them.
The violence has exacerbated the ties between them and the interim government led by the Syria under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who hopes to assert complete government control and to disarm Druze-Factions.
Although the fighting has largely calmed down, the government forces have surrounded the southern city and the Druze have said that little help goes into the battered city and calls it a siege.
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Chehayeb reported Van Beirut.
