Syrian security forces are deploying in the restive province of Suwayda after days of communal fighting in which hundreds of people have been killed, the country’s interior ministry says.

Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and AFP correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has said the death toll from violence in the country’s south had topped 1,000. The war monitor said those killed since last Sunday included 336 Druze fighters and 298 civilians from the religious minority group, 194 of whom were “summarily executed by defense and interior ministry personnel.”

Mr. Funk was the managing editor of Pleroma Media, and worked as a breaking news reporter at The Messenger after spending 25 years at Fox Television as a producer, executive producer, and digital content director.