About 300 people attended a vigil in solidarity with the people of Sweida/Suwayda, Syria at Martin Place on August 16 organised by the Sydney Druze community.
Rabie Aboufakher, whose family was forced to evacuate Sweida, told the vigil that more than 2000 Druze men, women and children have been massacred since July 14 when the region was attacked by 250,000 Syrian regime forces and allied Bedouin fighters attacked the “heartland of the Druze community in Syria.
More were injured and further 150,000 have been displaced, he said, describing it as a “campaign of ethnic cleansing” and a “massacre”. “They were shot in cold blood. They were burnt alive. They were executed in hospitals, murdered in their homes and hunted in the streets just for being Druze.”
Vigil organiser Marwa Tamani told Green Left: “We need the help of the world to lift the siege of Sweida. We need a humanitarian corridor because there is no food, no water, no supplies getting in.
“The hospital was out of service for a time and people are dying of malnutrition and from no medication… We need more humanitarian aid and that is our purpose today.”
Shaoquett Moselmane, a former NSW Labor Member of the Legislative Council, and Baran Sogut from the Kurdish community also spoke. Moselmane accused Israel and the United States of “supporting the destruction of minorities in Syria”.
“Who would have thought that the Druze of Syria would be subjected to this slaughter? I remember [Druze leader] Sultan Bashar as an heroic fighter for Syria, who stood up for Syria and led the revolution for Syria … and yet those criminals are killing the Druze in Sweida in the name of religion and a distorted view of the world.” He called on the federal and state Labor to “stand with the people of Sweida”.
Sogut said the Druze have bravely resisted the terrorist attacks on Sweida and “showed the world that democracy and peace will live”. He said the “Australian government and all international friends need to support peace and democracy in Sweida as well as in Rojava in north eastern Syria”.
He said a recent conference in Hasakah, Rojava had brought together Druze, Kurds, Armenians, Turkmen and local Arabs, which “shows that people can unite... [and] represent themselves”.
However, Turkey has seen this unity conference as a threat, and is now urging the Hayat Tahrir al Sham regime in Syria to attack Rojava just like it has attacked Sweida.