BEIRUT: More than 100 buses arrived on Wednesday to evacuate thousands of people from two loyalist Syrian villages that are besieged by rebels in the northwest, under a deal in which the government is expected to release hundreds of detainees.
The villages of Al Foua and Kefraya will be emptied of all their residents and fighters, a commander in the regional alliance that backs President Bashar al Assad said.
They have been under siege for years by rebels in Idlib province in the last major insurgent-held part of Syria.
Assad, who is advancing against rebels in the southwest, has vowed to recover the entire country.
Some 7,000 people will leave both villages, said Al Manar TV, run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
Population transfers have been a common feature of the seven-year Syrian war, which has killed an estimated half a million people and driven some 11 million from their homes. Rebels and civilians have been bussed out of their hometowns to insurgent territory in the north, as government forces advanced with critical help from Russia and Iran.
The opposition has decried it as a systematic policy of forcible displacement against those opposed to Assad, who comes from a particular sect. The conflict took on a sectarian dimension as it swelled out of protests in 2011. Militias have deployed from across the region to help Damascus against rebels.
The pro-Assad commander and a rebel source familiar with the secret talks said separately that Turkey was also involved in the process, which builds on a deal from last year that had not been fully implemented.
State TV said 121 buses had entered Al Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province so far on Wednesday, along with Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) ambulances for sick residents.
The evacuees will include hostages that rebel factions took when they overran Idlib more than three years ago, it said. In April last year, thousands of people were shuttled out of the two villages to government territory in an agreement.
In exchange, hundreds of residents left two towns at the border with Lebanon, Madaya and Zabadani, which were in the hands of rebels at the time and under siege from pro-government forces.
They were moved to Idlib.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that Russian and Syrian authorities had set up a refugee centre in Syria to help refugees return home from abroad.
The ministry said that the Centre for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees will “monitor the return of all temporarily-displaced people and Syrian refugees from foreign countries to their places of permanent residence”.
— Agencies
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