Uprooted Bedouins in Syria's south see little hope of return

As sectarian violence swept through Syria's southern Sweida province in July, the Sbeih family say they were taken by Druze gunmen and held in a school with other Bedouin tribe members. When their guards disappeared after three nights, they tried to escape.

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Shots were fired, and the Bedouins scattered. Faisal Sbeih and his wife, Fasl, were separated. Three family members were killed, they said, including their 20-year-old daughter, Malak.

She had been due to marry the next day.

Faisal accused militias loyal to leading Druze cleric Sheikh Hikmat Al Hajari of driving his Sunni community out of Sweida - a view echoed by more than a dozen displaced Bedouins interviewed by Reuters.

"We lived together; we bought bread from the same bakery, water from the same shop," Faisal said of his Druze neighbours in a series of interviews.

Now, he said, "they don't want any (Bedouins) at all."