The BBC has been making an attempt to attain the southern Syrian metropolis of Suweida where sectarian clashes between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribal militia have killed a whole lot of people. A fragile ceasefire is holding, but the space stays extraordinarily tense.
On Monday, we got within six miles of Suweida, as close as it was deemed secure to go.
“There are Druze snipers operating on the road ahead. That is the biggest danger,” a Syrian military commander warned us as we approached.
On the approach we handed through abandoned Druze villages, now under full Syrian authorities control.
Over the previous week, this freeway has clearly been a battlefield. Shops and companies have been burnt out. The pavements are littered with shell casings.
Every half a mile or so we’d come across small teams of resting Syrian military troopers. Young males, all in black, sipping on scorching tea, their weapons by their sides.
It’s 4 days since the Syrian authorities deployed its troops to implement a ceasefire.
The goal was to strive and carry an finish to a week of sectarian violence between the minority Druze non secular neighborhood and Bedouin tribesmen that has left more than 1,000 people useless.
For now that ceasefire seems to be holding, but it’s fragile.
As we headed south, we came across a whole lot of armed Bedouin massed by the roadside.
In their distinctive pink and white headscarves, they were in a defiant temper, firing wildly into the air, as Syrian authorities troopers regarded on anxiously.
All of them said they were ready to take up arms again if the ceasefire breaks down.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Red Crescent has managed to get some of the injured out of Suweida.
At the most important hospital in the southern Syrian metropolis of Deraa, we saw some of the wounded being introduced in.
Ahmed, 27, was hobbling on crutches, still in his Syrian military fatigues but with his left foot closely bandaged.
“A rocket propelled grenade exploded, and I was hit by shrapnel,” he said, wincing.
“I want to make something clear when we entered Suweida, the houses in front of us were burnt out, the bodies of children were burned, there were children with their heads cut off,” the younger solider said.
“The situation was beyond imagination.”
Outside the hospital, I talked to Riham Bermawi, a coordinator for the Syrian Red Crescent.
Calling the state of affairs “catastrophic”, she said there was a scarcity of medicines and first support kits.
“Too many surgeries needed,” she added.
She had just managed to carry some of the wounded out of Suweida province, but she said it was possible too harmful on the highway to strive another medical evacuation that day because snipers were taking pictures at the ambulances.
So, what does the future maintain for Syria?
This previous week has seen the most severe sectarian violence since the Syrian rebellion which introduced the Islamist insurgent chief Ahmed al-Sharaa to energy late last 12 months.
It came after a long time of dictatorship under the Assad regime.
“We all need to work more for Syria and to be united,” Raed al-Saleh, minister of catastrophe management and emergency response, advised me at a shelter for displaced people in Suweida province.
“We have many challenges, but we also have great hope,” he said.
“We have wise men in our communities so I believe that we can overcome this difficult phase, and we can achieve peace and justice.”
But on the highway to Suweida metropolis, we did not witness much of that.
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