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Thousands evacuated after deal reached over besieged villages
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THOUSANDS were evacuated from the last rebel-held enclave of the city of Aleppo yesterday after a deal was reached to allow people to leave two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province.
Convoys of buses from eastern Aleppo reached rebel-held areas of countryside to the west of the city in cold winter weather, according to a UN official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.
At the same time, 10 buses left the Shi’ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, north of Idlib, for government lines in Aleppo, the sources said.
The recapture of Aleppo is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s biggest victory so far in the nearly six-year-old war, but the fighting is by no means over with large tracts of the country still under the control of insurgent and Islamist groups.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said some 20,000 civilians had been evacuated from Aleppo so far.
The United Nations said nearly 50 children, some critically injured, were rescued from eastern Aleppo, where they had been trapped in an orphanage.
The evacuation of civilians, including wounded people, from the two villages had been demanded by the Syrian army and its allies before they would allow fighters and civilians trapped in Aleppo to depart. The stand-off halted the Aleppo evacuation over the weekend.
“Complex evacuations from East Aleppo and Foua & Kefraya now in full swing. More than 900 buses needed to evacuate all. We must not fail,” Jan Egeland, who chairs the UN aid task force in Syria, tweeted.
Ahmad al-Dbis, a medical aid worker heading a team evacuating patients from Aleppo, said 89 buses had left the city. “Some evacuees told us that a few children died from the long wait and the intense cold while they were waiting to evacuate,” he said.
For those still waiting to leave rebel-held Aleppo, conditions were grim, according to Aref al-Aref, a nurse and photographer. “I’m still in Aleppo. I’m waiting for them to evacuate the children and women first. It’s very cold and there’s hunger. It’s a long wait. People are burning wood and clothes to keep warm in the streets,” he said.
On Sunday, some of the buses sent to al-Foua and Kefraya to carry evacuees out were attacked and torched by armed men, who shouted “God is greatest” and brandished their weapons in front of the burning vehicles, according to a video posted online.
That incident threatened to derail the evacuations, the result of intense negotiations between Russia, Assad’s main supporter, and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups.
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