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.
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“This is a deal that the rebels had to sign and we will now see civilians moved to Sahnaya – a town in Damascus governorate – under regime control”, he said.
“This is the hardest moment, everyone is crying, young and old”, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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.
As part of the evacuation, civilians will go to another city near Damascus, while fighters will be transported to the northern Syrian province of Idlib.
The town was under siege for four years. “From there they will continue to the areas they wish to go to”, it said.
The United Nations says it was not involved in the negotiations that resulted in this deal, as The Associated Press reported.
In 2012, several hundred people were killed, including civilians, many execution style, when security forces stormed the suburb after locals took up arms. On Friday, the United Nations said only a single full aid convoy had reached besieged areas of Syria in August, denouncing the “wholly unacceptable” level of access.
Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces’ local group in Manbij, said artillery shelling on Amarneh village, south of Jarablus, continued Friday.
An estimated 8 000 people have remained in Daraya despite a siege that began in late 2012 and constant government bombardment.
Civilians were escorted to shelters in government-controlled suburbs of Damascus.
The capitulation by rebel forces in Daraya, an early bastion of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, provides another boost for his forces amid a stalemate in the fight for Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. During that time, the city received just two aid deliveries – only one of which had food in it.
Diaa said Daraya’s residents were let down by the worldwide community and by rebel factions in Daraa and eastern Ghouta who did not come to their rescue.
Thousands of Syrian civilians were preparing to leave the long-besieged Damascus suburb of Darayya on Friday after rebel forces there were forced to surrender under the pressure of starvation. The Syrian government denies using barrel bombs. We have counted the weapons used: 1,805 barrel bombs and 729 high-explosive earth-to-earth missiles.
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After meeting off-and-on for almost 10 hours in Geneva on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could point to only incremental progress in filling in details of a broad understanding reached last month in Moscow to boost joint efforts by the two nations.
