More than 3,000 people were evacuated from Syria’s Damascus suburb of Daraya on Saturday following a deal to end a four-year siege and a grueling bombing campaign there, according to a human rights group.
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Black smoke rose on the horizon caused by the militants burning their belongings before evacuating, according to Syrian army soldiers.
Under the agreement, the rebels will be allowed safe passage to the rebel-held northern province of Idlib, while the civilians will be taken to a shelter south of Daraya.
Insurgents and government forces agreed a deal on Thursday to evacuate the town, which the Syrian army has surrounded since 2012.
According to the United Nations, almost 600,000 live under siege across Syria, most by government forces, although both rebels and jihadists also use the tactic.
In a statement Friday, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army denied that the evacuation constituted a surrender.
Syrian state television reported that all the buses that left on Friday had arrived at a housing centre in Herjalleh, a suburb west of Damascus.
The arrivals were the first since the evacuation of the town just outside Damascus began on Friday under an agreement between the government and the rebels. Activists said at least 15 civilians were killed when helicopters dropped barrel bombs on a wake for the children killed in earlier air strikes on the city.
The Syrian civil war started as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly escalated into a full-scale war.
The statement says “the world is watching”.
“We are using this lull in the fighting to get in and see what we can do and obviously see for ourselves what the situation is inside the city”, Dujarric told reporters at United Nations headquarters in NY.
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. Long sieges have compelled opposition forces to abandon territory, which has encouraged the government to adopt “surrender or starve” tactic even more widely.
Their failure to reach an overall deal highlighted the increasingly complex situation on the ground in Syria – including new Russian-backed Syrian government attacks on opposition forces, the intermingling of some of those opposition forces with an al-Qaida affiliate not covered by the truce and the surrender of Daraya – as well as deep divisions and mistrust dividing Washington and Moscow.
The U.N.’s humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien told the U.N. Security Council earlier this year that severe food shortages were forcing some people in Daraya to eat grass.
Syria’s government denies deploying barrel bombs, but their use has been widely confirmed by outside monitors, including the United Nations, whose Security Council condemned the dropping of incendiary devices previous year.
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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.
