Armed tribes supported by Syria's government clashed with Druze fighters in the community's Sweida heartland on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure.
The United Nations called for an end to the "bloodshed" and demanded an "independent" investigation of the violence, which has claimed at least 638 lives since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The renewed fighting raised questions over the authority of interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose interim government also has difficult relations with the Kurdish and Alawite minorities.
It was Sharaa who ordered government forces to pull out, saying that mediation by the United States and others had helped avert a "large-scale escalation" with Israel.
Renewed fighting erupted Friday between Bedouin tribal factions and the Druze at the entrance to Sweida, an AFP correspondent said.
About 200 tribal fighters clashed with armed Druze men from the city using machine guns and shells, the AFP correspondent said, while the Observatory also reported fighting and "shelling on neighbourhoods in Sweida city". In the corridors of the Sweida National Hospital, a foul odour emanated from the swollen and disfigured bodies piled up in refrigerated storage units, an AFP correspondent reported.
A small number of doctors and nurses at the hospital worked to treat the wounded arriving from the ongoing clashes, some in the hallways. Omar Obeid, a doctor at the government hospital, told AFP that the facility has received "more than 400 bodies since Monday morning".
"There is no more room in the morgue, the bodies are in the street" in front of the hospital, added Obeid, president of the Sweida branch of the Order of Physicians.
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