Syrian rebels and their families have begun evacuating the town of Darayya outside the capital Damascus on Friday, under a deal agreed with the government after a four-year army siege.
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Besieged residents and rebels began leaving the Damascus suburb of Daraya today, Reuters witnesses said, as an evacuation to end one of the longest stand-offs in Syria’s five-year war began. “There isn’t a single armed man there”, the source said of the insurgents, speaking on condition of anonymity. The United Nations said it was not involved in negotiating the deal, although a UN team would enter Daraya to identify civilian needs.
The suburb has been besieged and blockaded by government forces, with only one food delivery by the United Nations allowed to reach the district during this time. “The world is watching”, the statement adds.
An evacuation agreement reached between the government and rebels gave thousands of civilians and hundreds of fighters safe passage out of the besieged city, the state-run Syrian Arab news Agency reported. “The civilians are forced mainly to go to the regime-held areas”.
“We have been in contact with De Mistura’s office in Damascus, and they are fully acquainted with the agreement”, said Ayash, the former city councilman.
Regaining control of Darayya is part of the government plan to secure the capital by reducing the rebels’ presence in its suburbs.
On Saturday, the evacuees spoke of years under siege in Daraya as children had their first taste of treats such as ice cream – and tomatoes.
Daraya, located in the western Ghouta area of Damascus, is close to the major military airbase of Mazzeh, which had been subject to repetitive failed attacks by the rebels from Daraya.
“No one wanted to leave this place, but we just couldn’t take it anymore”, Shadi Matar, a representative of Darayya’s local council, said Friday. “But in the last three months, all the crops were destroyed, and the regime captured our farming area”, he said. It saw some of the first demonstrations against Assad after the 2011 uprising against his family’s rule in which residents took to the streets, sometimes carrying red and white roses to reflect the peaceful nature of their protests.
British-based organisation Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two barrel bombs hit a rebel-held part of the city just minutes apart from each other.
Rebel fighters pulled out of Syria’s third city Homs past year under a similar evacuation deal. The deal to evacuate it is considered to be a significant boost to the Assad regime, the BBC reports.
In Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met to discuss efforts to resume Syrian peace talks, with de Mistura later joining the talks. Meanwhile a bloody battle for the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, is ongoing.
Daraya has become a microcosm of the conflict in Syria.
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But the opposition charges that numerous government gains in the region have been won by siege and starvation tactics, with opposition districts forced to surrender or sign local truces in order to gain supplies.
