In Syria's Druze-majority city of Sweida, residents said they have been living in terror since the arrival of government forces who have been carrying out what witnesses and a war monitor have called summary executions.

"A lot of my friends were killed, including a doctor who was going to hospital," said Osama, 32, by telephone on Wednesday, adding he was in the centre of the southern city.

"There were summary executions in the streets," he told AFP crying, declining to provide his surname.

"If they reach here, I'm dead," he said, adding: "I fear massacres similar to those on the coast."

In early March, hundreds of civilians mostly from Syria's Alawite minority were massacred in the community's coastal heartland after attacks........

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