Dozens of Syrians rally outside BBC headquarters in London calling for action to protect Druze

Dozens of Syrians from minority communities rally in central London calling for action to protect the Druze in their Sweida heartland, where sectarian violence has killed hundreds.

Around 80 protesters chant “God protect Druze” and “Stop supporting Jolani,” referring to Syrian interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s nom de guerre, which he abandoned after his Islamist group seized Damascus late last year.

The demonstrators in the British capital hold up placards calling for an end to deadly violence in Sweida over the past week and for a humanitarian corridor to be opened up via the Jordanian border.

More than 900 people have been killed in the Druze-majority province since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

The sectarian clashes between the Druze and Bedouin tribes, who are Sunni Muslim, have drawn in the Islamist-led government as well as Israel and armed tribes from other parts of Syria.

In London, demonstration organizer Emad al Eismy tells AFP atrocities were still going on in Sweida.

“Shootings, beheadings, raping, killing children, [torching] shops, homes… it’s a barbarian movement going on in Sweida,” he says at the protest outside the headquarters of the BBC.

“We are asking for protection. We are asking for a humanitarian corridor,” he says.

AFP correspondents in Sweida reported clashes on Saturday, despite a ceasefire ordered by the government following a US-brokered deal to avert further Israeli military intervention.

The Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said armed volunteers had been deployed with the support of the Islamist-led government. Druze fighters said those who arrived to support the Bedouin were mostly Islamists.

Protester Maan Radwan, who has family in Sweida, fights back tears as he says some of his relatives had died in a massacre at their guesthouse in Sweida city last week.

He reproaches British Foreign Secretary David Lammy for his visit to Syria earlier this month, when he met Sharaa.

William Salha, like most of the protesters, also has family members still living in Sweida.

He says they are “helpless,” shut in their homes, attempting to keep themselves safe.

“It’s like ethnic cleansing. They want the city without its people. They are trying to do as much killing as they can,” he says, accusing the Syrian government of complicity.

Another protester, a teenage schoolboy from south London at the protest with his mother, says relatives in Sweida are “truly suffering.”

He says multiple members of his father’s family have been gunned down and killed, with the news filtering out through an aunt.

“The armed groups came to them, they tried to resist and they shot them,” he says.