Security footage from a hospital in southern Syria published on Sunday appears to show men in military garb killing an unarmed medical volunteer, according to videos verified by The New York Times, the latest grisly images of the wave of sectarian violence that erupted in Syria last month and left more than 1,000 dead.
The footage shows armed men in military fatigues entering Sweida National Hospital on July 16, days after the Syrian government sent military forces to the southern Sweida Province to quell clashes between armed Bedouin groups and militias from the Druse, a minority in Syria that practices an ancient offshoot of Shia Islam.
Inside the hospital, the fighters direct a crowd of people, some in scrubs and others in civilian clothing, into an entryway, and the footage appears to show the armed men ordering the people to kneel with their hands up.
One of the fighters then shoots him with a rifle. A few seconds later, another shoots him with a handgun.
The footage — published online by Verify Syria, a fact-checking blog based in the country, and circulated widely on social media — reflects the deepening tensions that have embroiled southern Syria since the violence erupted last month. The Times verified the footage by matching interior details with recent publicly available video of the National Hospital, and by identifying the same individuals in multiple videos.
The bloodshed in the hospital took place amid one of the deadliest bouts of sectarian violence since Syria’s new government, led by President Ahmed al-Shara, took power in December. The footage heightened fears that the government might be either unable or unwilling to contain the sectarian, religious and ethnic tensions that have boiled to the surface in Syria since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
Activists and human rights monitors say the footage shows fighters who appear to be government forces involved in a summary execution of a civilian. Monitoring groups identified the man who was killed as Mohammed Rafiq al-Bahsas, an engineer who volunteered as a health worker at the hospital during the clashes.
Mohammad al-Abdallah, director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, a Syrian human rights monitoring organization based in Washington, said in a social media post that the footage documented a “war crime and a violation against medical personnel who are supposed to be protected under international law.”
“The U.N.’s international investigation committee must enter Sweida immediately,” he added.
Syrian officials from the Ministries of Information and Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment about accusations that government forces were involved in the summary execution in the video. In a statement on X, the Interior Ministry said it condemned and denounced the violence in the video.
“We affirm that the perpetrators will be held accountable and brought to justice, regardless of their affiliations,” the statement said.
Last month, the Syrian government, led by President al-Shara, set up a committee to investigate the attacks on civilians during the conflict in Sweida and report its findings within three months.
The violence in Sweida erupted last month after an exchange of attacks and kidnappings between armed Bedouin groups and Druse militias that effectively control Sweida Province. The Bedouins, a minority in Sweida, are largely Sunni and have often clashed with the Druse over issues like land and water rights.
Days into the conflict, the Syrian government deployed military forces that Syrian officials said were sent to quell the violence. Those forces became embroiled in fighting the Druse militias — clashes that quickly devolved into sectarian attacks on civilians. After Israel launched airstrikes targeting Syrian government troops, the Syrian government withdrew its troops from Sweida city.
More than 1,000 people were killed in the bloodshed, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization. Another monitoring group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll as high as 1,625 people, more than 400 of whom were killed in summary executions.
A majority of those killed were Druse fighters and civilians, according to both monitoring groups. About 175,000 people were displaced by the fighting, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, most of them Bedouins.
Over the past week, the clashes have mostly subsided, but residents of Sweida say very little aid is making it into the battered city, which is now effectively surrounded by government forces.
On Sunday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a statement expressing “deep concern” about the situation in Sweida. It also stressed that the Syrian government must protect all Syrians, warning that “there can be no meaningful recovery in Syria without genuine safety and protection for all Syrians.”
Reham Mourshed contributed reporting.