BEIRUT: Dozens of buses arrived in rebel-held northwestern Syria on Tuesday carrying Syrian insurgents who had agreed to surrender the town they controlled near Damascus after it was hit in a suspected chemical attack, a monitoring group said.
Their evacuation, along with their families, came as the United Nations Security Council prepared to meet later to discuss a suspected poison gas attack on Douma over the weekend.
Rebels blamed the government, which denies any involvement, and US President Donald Trump pledged to take swift action. The UN chemical weapons watchdog has started an investigation. The Syrian government’s main ally, Russia, says the reports of the chemical attack are bogus.
Hundreds more people began to leave Douma on Tuesday and the pro-government Watan newspaper said about 40,000 militants and their families were due to leave in all, as the UN refugee agency voiced alarm at “spiralling new displacement”. The deal restores President Bashar al Assad’s control over the entire Eastern Ghouta — formerly the biggest rebel bastion near Damascus.
Sixty-seven buses carrying hundreds of fighters, along with family members and other civilians who did not wish to come back under Assad’s rule, reached opposition areas near Aleppo on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
RIA news agency quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying 3,600 militants and their families had left Douma over the past 24 hours.
As part of the surrender deal, the Jaish group that controlled the town released scores of people it had been holding. The deal took effect on Sunday, hours after medical aid groups reported the suspected chemical attack, saying it had killed dozens of people in Douma.
The government and its allies had been attacking the densely populated Eastern Ghouta for seven weeks.
Thousands of fighters from other rebel groups, accompanied by tens of thousands of civilians, have already left for northwestern Syria after deals surrendering the Ghouta’s other major towns. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said around 130,000 people had fled Eastern Ghouta.
“Our particular concern is the situation in Douma... where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped,” UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told a news briefing.
The recapture of Eastern Ghouta represents Assad’s biggest battlefield victory since late 2016, when he took back Aleppo, and underlines his unassailable position in the war.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan criticised Russia’s stance on the future of Syria’s Afrin region, saying that Ankara itself would decide the details of returning the area to the Syrian people.
“We know very well who we’ll hand Afrin to. First, let’s talk about handing over areas controlled by other countries in Syria to Syria,” Erdogan told reporters, dismissing comments from Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. “When the time comes, we will give Afrin to the people of Afrin personally, but the timing of this is up to us, we will determine it, not Mr Lavrov,” he said.
Lavrov on Monday said the easiest way to normalise the situation in Afrin was to put the area back under the control of Syrian government, the Interfax reported. — Agencies
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