The deal was made between the rebels and the government, which didn’t make the United Nations happy, since they like to be the ones brokering such deals. 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. “The regime captured our farmland”.
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Some residents voiced alarm about the latter arrangement, wondering whether they would suffer the same fate as hundreds of activists and rebel fighters who disappeared into government prisons after a similar negotiated surrender in the western city of Homs in 2014. Some 700 rebel gunmen were evacuated in the dal and are being taken to the rebel-held Idlib Province.
Assad has denied accusations of using chemical weapons, and has consistently complained that USA efforts in his country, including backing rebel groups such as the ones retreating from Daraya, are counterproductive and hypocritical. She said residents, already the victims of “countless war crimes”, should have the choice of staying their homes.
“We just hope if we are not involved that the worldwide norms and standards are respected”, he said.
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.
The evacuation comes on the heels of a meeting on Syria between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.
It took de Mistura 19 hours to issue his statement following a query by The Daily Beast Thursday evening.
But he said “a United Nations humanitarian team is reaching out to all parties, including the local population”.
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“The UN was not consulted or involved in the negotiation of this agreement”, the envoy’s office statement said in a written statement. They made us suffer so much.
The Syria Institute’s Szybala was withering in her criticism of the supranational body. Civilians will be taken to Kisweh, south of Darayya. “Their efforts began and ended with that insufficient aid convoy in June”.
They said civilians should be evacuated only if their safety could be guaranteed and it was on a voluntary basis.
He said trucks were ready to bring humanitarian relief to the city. Inside Daraya, which has been surrounded by loyalist forces since 2012 and suffered constant bombardment, tearful residents said final goodbyes, a local rebel told AFP. 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.
“People are gathering their memories and the few possessions they have left to preserve the memory of the four years of siege, hunger and shelling, and as a reminder to the global community that let them down without any guilt”, he said. “We depend on the food we plant ourselves”.
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“The people here are so scared to leave”, said Malik Tifai, an activist still living in the suburb who was reached by telephone.
