Syrian government troops are seen reflected on the window of a bus carrying people as part of an evacuation from the town of Daraya outside the capital Damascus on August 26, 2016, under a deal agreed between the government and opposition fighters after a four-year army siege. “It was the worldwide community who failed, and failed the people of Daraya”. Live shots broadcast by a Beirut TV channel showed the buses crawling through crowds of cheering Shabiha, but no interviews with evacuees.
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“The world is watching”, de Mistura said.
An estimated 8,000 people remain in the town, despite a government siege lasting four years and regular government bombardment. After a fierce regime offensive this summer that seized their farmlands and destroyed their sole field hospital one week ago, they had run out of food, water, ammunition and medical care.
“These weren’t just punitive tactics”, said Faysal Itani, a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.
“We are close”, Kerry said. “The regime captured our farmland”.
Yet rebel activists in Darayya insisted they would leave the city only to take up arms against the government once more.
Earlier on Saturday, at least five buses carrying fighters and their families arrived in the rebel-held city of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, following a deal reached between rebels and the government to cede control of rebel-held Daraya over to government forces.
“When the United Nations sent a fact-finding mission to Daraya in May, officials were followed around by crowds of hundreds of civilians – including malnourished women and children”. Russian Federation and the U.S. have largely backed opposing sides in Syria’s civil war.
The mass relocation of the suburb’s residents reflects the government’s ongoing military strategy to break up Sunni population areas, weakening the rebellion against it.
“We just hope if we are not involved that the global norms and standards are respected”, he said.
It took de Mistura 19 hours to issue his statement following a query by The Daily Beast Thursday evening.
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“It is imperative that the people of Darayya are protected in any evacuation that takes place and that this takes place voluntarily”, he said. “We surrendered for them, to keep them alive”.
The Syria Institute’s Szybala was withering in her criticism of the supranational body.
It was “imperative” that Daraya’s residents be protected and only voluntarily evacuated, the United Nations envoy said.
He said trucks were ready to bring humanitarian relief to the city.
Syrian rebel forces will leave the Damascus suburb of Darayya after agreeing to hand over their weapons to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which will take over the besieged town.
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The plight of civilians in Daraya and other besieged areas has always been of concern to the United Nations, which has condemned the use of starvation as a weapon by both sides in the conflict. Turkey on Wednesday sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels retake the key Islamic State-held town of Jarablus and to contai. It was left choked off, with no supply lines and no roads in or out.
