Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, and esteemed partners,

This morning, Aya Salam was killed—shot in the head—while traveling on a bus carrying civilians from Damascus to Sweida.
Two others were killed alongside her, and several passengers were injured, including a woman and her two little daughters.

This is not an ordinary incident that can be dismissed as the byproduct of a country still listed among conflict zones.
It is a deeply symbolic crime—one that encapsulates the ongoing tragedy of the people of Sweida, who continue to pay thehighest price either by living in  poverty, isolation, disease, or humiliation.

Aya, a university student at the Institute of Physical Therapy, believed the situation had finally become safe enough to travel to Damascus and take her final exam, to graduate like her classmates who completed their studies last summer.
But repeated attacks on Sweida and the blockage imposed on the province had prevented her from doing so.
Today, Aya returned home lifeless, a bullet lodged in her head—shot on the highway highway in rural Damascus, an area known to be under the control of the General Security forces and their allied Bedouin groups.

The symbolism of this crime goes far beyond one young student.
It reflects the suffering of thousands of Sweida students who have been deprived of education and university access due to hate speech, exclusion, and sectarian incitement on campuses and in dormitories.
It also bears the grim reminder that the attack took place on the very same road that was at the heart of the July Sweida assault carried out by the army and General Security forces.

The deeper truth is this: the current authorities lack the political will to protect this road—the only route connecting the Druze community of swaidaa to the rest of Syria.
Thus the  western road remains under the control of the General Security and extremist tribal groups used in sectarian, near-genocidal attacks against the Druze.

This same road is explicitly mentioned in the Triplate Amman Agreement, with its resolution placed in the hands of the guarantor states.

I was here last March, speaking about our movement’s vision to make the transitional process successful. I spoke about the great effort we put into convincing the authorities to adopt a participatory and inclusive approach, especially by involving women. The Syrian Women Political movement tried to communicate with them, even from one side, so they could take responsibility for improving the living and security conditions of the exhausted Syrian people.

The transitional authority remains one-color, and the army has not been rebuilt on national and inclusive foundations. Instead, it reflects an exclusionary mindset that has led to repeated massacres as the state continues to use violence to impose control.

In March, massacres took place in the coastal region, killing civilians. Today, members of the Alawite community live in fear, as kidnappings, killings, and daily violations of human dignity continue despite repeated promises of investigations and accountability.

And directly after the coast massacre constitutional declaration was announced, which deeply disappointed Syrians. It increased the fears of political movements and minorities that authoritarianism would be reborn. The declaration gave absolute powers to the transitional president and included no sign that democracy or pluralism would be real foundations of the new Syria.

In 21 August 2025, UN experts sounded the alarm over a wave of armed attacks on Syrian Druze communities in and around Sweida Governorate since 13 July 2025, with reports of killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, looting, destruction of property, and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls.

As per the New York Times on 22 October 2025, Armed men dragged civilians from their homes, calling them pigs, dogs and heretics before killing them.

Many of the fighters filmed themselves as they carried out atrocities, posting an array of trophy videos that spread across social media and struck fear in minorities across Syria.

In another video verified by The Times, men in fatigues point their rifles at an unarmed 60 year-old Druse man, Munir al-Rajma, as he sits on the steps of a school, demanding to know if he is Druse. Mr. al-Rajma replies that he is Syrian.

“What do you mean by Syrian? Are you Muslim or Druse?” one of the fighters yells.

“Yes, brother, I am Druse,” he responds. So he got shoted because of this response.

As a political activist and a human and women’s right defenders I could never have imagined, even in my worst nightmares, that this would happen.
We all believed that with the departure of Bashar al-Assad, our ordeal had finally ended — that the country had returned to us, and that we, as Syrians, would come together after decades of dark tyranny and years of devastating conflict that left Syria looted and destroyed.

We thought there was an unspoken agreement among us that nothing like that would ever happen again — that we would never accept a new form of tyranny, nor tolerate an authority that uses military force and violence to subdue Syrian regions, nor one that pits one Syrian community against another.We said we would never accept the siege of cities, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, or rape — crimes that reopen our collective trauma, which we simply cannot bear.
But unfortunately, all of this has happened again in the past few months.Thus, We hold the interim government fully responsible for these violations — whether committed by its security forces, affiliated militias, or through covering up the perpetrators and denying justice. We also call on international human rights organizations to take their role seriously, to investigate and expose these crimes, and to act immediately to stop this destructive phenomenon that tears apart Syrian society.As a Syrian woman from Sweida, and as someone who belongs to the Druze community that suffered from this massacre, I carry today the voices of my people — people who are hungry, who are being bargained with over their salaries, food, movement, and their children’s education. My people have cut all ties with the new authorities, and they no longer believe this government can be trusted.

Their messages are clear:

Humanitarian aid, full access to essentials, salaries, the return of displaced people, and the burial of their dead are basic rights, not political bargaining tools.

Stop provoking them by promoting local figures they reject as their supposed representatives.

Criminalize hate speech and sectarian incitement that prevent people’s movement and access to education, and that threaten civil peace.

Implement the Triplate Amman Agreement (September 16, 2025)  immediately, with international guarantees.

urge cooperation with local actors to solve the education crisis, uncover the fate of kidnapped and forcibly disappeared people, and ensure that displaced families can return to their villages.

Additionally, we call to:

Officially declare Sweida a disaster area.

Deliver emergency aid through UN response mechanisms.

Provide technical and logistical support to reach those in need.

Include Sweida in international funding and humanitarian response plans.

What I just said are not only demands, but they are also essential steps to restore dignity, to cure the wounds, and to put Syria on the right track to be stable and achieve a lasting peace.

New York, Tuesday, October 28, 2025