ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Amnesty International on Thursday called on Druze armed groups to release a humanitarian worker who was abducted during sectarian clashes in southern Syria’s Druze-majority Suwayda province in July.

The Syria Civil Defense, a search and rescue team, dispatched 33-year-old Hamza al-Amareen, the head of Daraa’s emergency response center, to Suwayda in response to a UN call for assistance in mid-July, a day after deadly clashes between Damascus and its affiliated forces and Druze armed groups broke out. 

After repeated futile attempts to reach him, “the following morning Hamza managed to speak to his wife, telling her, “I am in Suwayda, I am good but take care of yourself.” Since then, the family has had no contact with him,” Amnesty said. 

“The Civil Defense reported that on 17 July, when they called his phone, an unidentified person answered, confirmed he was okay, and then hung up,” it added.

Amareen is a father of three and recently reunited with his parents after 13 years. His family told Amnesty that they lived in camps and were displaced during the former Bashar al-Assad regime. 

“In 2018, we were displaced to north-west Syria and lived in Idlib, where he continued his work. He responded to earthquakes, former government attacks on camps, and other crises,” the family said, adding, “he planned to settle in Daraa but was dispatched to respond to wildfires in Lattakia. Only two or three days after returning, the crisis in Suwayda began, so he barely had time to rest,” a close relative said. 

Citing “credible information received by his family,” Amnesty said that Amareen was abducted by Druze armed groups while traveling in a vehicle “clearly marked” as civil defense.

Witnesses said they abducted him and left the civilians he was transporting on the roadside, according to the rights watchdog.

In July, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) documented over 1,600 deaths in Suwayda as a result of clashes between the Druze and Damascus-backed Bedouin tribesmen, including more than 700 individuals from Suwayda, most of them being Druze.

Syria has repeatedly fallen into sectarian conflict since Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime in December, leading Ahmed al-Sharaa to seize the presidency.

The new authorities in Damascus have repeatedly been criticized for failing to protect minorities.