The largely Druze town of Suwayda was shaken in mid-July by clashes between Druze and armed Bedouin. Reuters reports execution-style killings of unarmed Druze civilians and home-to-home massacres, with about a thousand believed killed in the bloodshed. A medical examiner said he had seen about 500 bodies, including a decapitation, close-range gunshots, and teenage girls with throats slit.

Canadian Druze held a news conference on July 25 outside Toronto City Hall to call the public’s attention to the atrocities and to call on the Canadian government to intervene. Among them: Rahaf Alakbani, 34, who arrived from Suwayda with her husband, Esmaeel Aboufakher, in February 2016, following the escalation of violence and persecution in Syria.