Sectarian clashes break out in Syria's Suwayda, 30 die

According to reports, the clashes mostly occurred in the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda.

The clashes broke out just days after a Druze merchant was reportedly abducted on the highway to Damascus.

The interior ministry called the situation "a dangerous escalation" and said security forces were being deployed to try to restore calm, reported BBC.

This is the latest sectarian violence that has broken out in the nation since the Islamist-led rebel forces dethroned former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year.

The country's interior ministry was quoted as saying by BBC: "This dangerous escalation comes in light of the absence of relevant official institutions, leading to worsening chaos, a collapse of the security situation, and the local community's inability to contain the crisis despite repeated calls for calm."

It added that interior ministry forces, in co-ordination with the defence ministry, would "begin direct intervention in the area to end the conflict and impose order".

Suwayda governor Mustapha al-Bakur has called on his constituents to exercise self-restraint.

Several Syrian Druze spiritual leaders have also appealed for calm in the area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, claimed the province experienced a dramatic escalation since early morning in light of the ongoing tension in the province during the past 24 hours.

"Today’s escalation was manifested in attacks launched from the eastern countryside of Daraa by Bedouin tribesmen and members of the ministries of defence and interior, targeting several villages in the western countryside of Al-Suwaidaa, mainly the villages of Taarah, Al-Dor and Al-Duwayrah, amid fierce clashes between the attackers and local gunmen," read the group's website.