Suwayda- North-Press Agency
After dozens of residents staged a sit-in in front of the city council of As-Suwayda last Sunday, shouting the slogans "you have burned us" and "we want to live in dignity" and calling on the Syrian government to put an end to the fires that affected crops and forests since the beginning of this month, the traditional leaders and the Men of Dignity movement moved to form protection committees in response to these issues.
The governorate of As-Suwayda, which has a Druze majority, is under the control of the Syrian government in addition to the existence of a role for elders and local leadership, some of which have traditional religions and status, with headquarters in their areas of influence.
Calls to form committees
The media office for Dar al Ura, which is the headquarters of the Druze leadership in Jabal al-Druze (officially Jabal al-Arab) and the town of Ura located 10km southwest of Suwayda city, told North-Press that on Sunday evening, with the endeavors and guidance of the Prince of the Mountain Louay Shibli al-Atrash, and at a meeting in Dar al-Emara in Bara, attended by dignitaries, sheikhs, and heads of peasant associations, it was decided to form committees in the area of Ura and the surrounding villages to guard crops from fires.
According to the office, eight groups have been formed from the youth of the town and the neighboring villages, each group consisting of five members, whose mission is to monitor, warn and investigate foreigners and unfamiliar movements in the region over 24 hours, as the groups will spread to the west, south, and north of the town of Ura to protect crops from any tampering.
By the beginning of May this year, dozens of fires had affected wheat and barley crops in the villages of al-Hit, Taala, Salim, al-Soura al-Kubra, al-Majdal, al-Mazraa, Uri, al-Mujimar, and Sayyad in Dhebeen in the countryside of As-Suwayda.
As a result of the fires, about 600 acres of wheat and barley fields were burned, as well as more than 500 oak, wild pine, wild berry, and sumac trees from the Dhamna Reserve in the northeast of As-Suwayda last Thursday.
"Most of the fires were caused by a deliberate act, because most of the fires happened at night," said Tharwa Hamid, a member of the Ura municipal council.
The Syrian government’s official news agency SANA quoted the Director of Agriculture in Suwayda Engineer Ayham Hamid as saying that the extensive fires that broke out in separate areas of Suwayda governorate during the past few days led to the damage of 1,175 acres of field crops, forage crops, fruit trees and forestry as well as 800 acres of dry herbs.
Southern District Committee
Last Sunday evening, a group of young men from the southern region was formed called Bairq al-Hedoud , which is also tasked with protecting lands and crops.
A leader of the Men of Dignity movement, which was founded in 2012, who asked not to be named, said that the group was formed at the invitation of Sheikh Yahya al-Hajjar, who is based in the southeast of As-Suwayda governorate, to the people of the region and Suwayda in general to guard their crops themselves.
Bairaq Al-Hedoud is composed of 15 groups, each one consisting of ten members. Most of them are young men from villages and southern towns of the governorate, and each group is equipped with a pickup truck and water tank in order to protect crops located in the far southeast to the far southwest. The governorate extends for a length of 50 km, along the border strip adjacent to Jordan.
Sheikh Yahya al-Hajjar and a group of the governorate’s sheikhs had called in front of a crowd last Sunday evening, to follow the rest of the villages and towns in Suwayda governorate to protect their livelihoods by themselves.