The evacuation is part of deal that grants safe passage to insurgents from different rebel factions who have been fortified in Darrya for over four years when they took control of the city back in August 2012 and the Syrian army launched a wide-scale operation to force them out. Rebel fighters pulled out of Syria’s third city Homs a year ago under a similar evacuation deal. The gunmen and their families headed to the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province.
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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. Under the terms of the deal, about 700 gunmen will be allowed safe exit to the opposition-held northern province of Idlib, while some 4,000 civilians will be taken temporarily to a shelter south of Daraya. They officially expressed “concern” over the deal, saying they weren’t consulted at all on the matter.
Last December, Syrian rebels evacuated the last district they controlled in the central city of Homs, a major symbol of the uprising, after a almost three-year siege.
Gaining control of Daraya is a boost for Mr Assad nd increases the security of his seat of power in the capital. On Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA announced a deal had been struck for the evacuation of civilians and fighters in the town. It has been held by a coalition of ultraconservative militants, including the Martyrs of Islam Brigade. After meeting off and on with Lavrov for almost 10 hours, Kerry said the two “have achieved clarity” on a path to restore a truce in Syria but details remain to be worked out.
“A terrorist center” remains in those areas of Syria and “no one can deal with it because so-called moderate opposition groups are there”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said in an interview the day before the talks.
In a statement, the United Nations said it was neither involved nor consulted about the evacuation plan, adding, “the world is watching”.
Buses packed with people rumbled past bombed-out buildings in the Damascus suburb of Daraya Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group that monitors the conflict, said Saturday it was informed by reliable sources that five vehicles carrying fighters and their families have reached the city of Idlib.
The withdrawal of rebels just a few miles from Damascus is widely seen as a victory for the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.
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It’s a tactic, dubbed “starve or surrender”, that the Syrian government has been accused of using in a number of locations.
