Black people of Yarmouk Basin

The black people of Yarmouk Basin are a little-known Afro-Arab ethnic group in Syria. Most live in southwestern Daraa Governorate.
History.
Though their exact origin is unknown, some local stories report Sudan as ancestral homeland of the Yarmouk Basin's black people; in any case, they have lived in the area for a long time, and are culturally and linguistically assimilated into the local Arab population. While the number of blacks in the basin is considered relatively large by locals, their existence is little known throughout wider Syria. In course of the Syrian Civil War, most of the black population of the Yarmouk Basin came under control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant through first the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade and then the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army.
Population.
Geographic distribution.
While a few villages and towns in the Yarmouk Basin have larger black populations, smaller numbers of the ethnic group can be found throughout the whole area.