Beirut, Lebanon: Dozens
of wounded rebel fighters, along with members of their families, are
being evacuated from a Syrian border town that is besieged by government
forces.
The evacuation was agreed as part of a deal that will, in exchange,
see the safe passage of scores of civilians from two
government-supporting villages that are surrounded by rebels in northern
Syria.
Some 126 people - including 70 rebel fighters - who have been under
siege in the town of Zabadani, which is in Syria's south near the
Lebanese border, will arrive in Beirut airport on Monday.
They will then fly to Turkey under the supervision of the UN and the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from where they will be
transferred to Syria's largely rebel-held Idlib province.
The rebel contingent and their families will travel to Beirut via the
Lebanese border crossing al-Masnaa in convoys of buses. Ambulances also
entered Zabadani on Monday to transport the seriously wounded.
Sources in Zabadani told Al Jazeera that at least 12 ICRC and
UN vehicles had arrived in the town by 8am local time (0500GMT) to take
the rebels out.
Opposition-held Zabadani has been subjected to a relentless
bombardment for months by government troops, backed by the Shia Lebanese
group Hezbollah, in an attempt to take it from the rebels.
The evacuations, an effective swap, come after a negotiated ceasefire
deal involving Turkey and the armed group Ahrar al-Sham on one side,
and Iran and the Syrian government on the other.
'Unprecedented destruction'
The villages of Fuaa and Kefraya have been under siege by Jaysh el
Fateh – a collective of opposition groups that includes Ahrar al Sham
and the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front – since March 2015.
Rockets have regularly been launched at the two villages, in which about 4,000 families live.
At the same time as the Zabadani transports, about 336 people - including women and children - were being evacuated from the two Shia villages, which are in Idlib.
Monday’s swap, a rare event in Syria, is considered to be the first
phase of a ceasefire deal, brokered in September, to stop the months of
fighting in Zabadani.
According to medical sources involved in the operation, the people
being transferred from Fuaa and Kefraya have been selected from among
those in the village who need urgent treatment.
They are expected to be transported from through the Bab al Hawa
border crossing into Turkey. From Turkey, they will travel to Beirut and
then on to the Syrian capital Damascus.
"Those who are in
urgent need of medical attention will stay in Lebanon until they are
able to move again and will then proceed onto Syria," a medical source
told Al Jazeera, adding they have been waiting for three months for the
deal to be implemented.
Syria deal: 'Population swap' or 'sectarian cleansing?'
The UN in July spoke of "
unprecedented levels of destruction and many deaths among the civilian population" in Zabadani caused by barrel bombs dropped by Syrian government planes.
It also
voiced concern about the 15,000 civilians in Fuaa and Kefraya, living under the pressure of an opposition advance.
In October, the Red Cross delivered eight trucks of food and aid to
the towns, while simultaneously sending similar trucks to Zabadani and
and nearby Madaya.
Source: 18Wallstreet
