00h24 – Conflict in Syria – Beginning of the evacuation of besieged pro-regime localities

Buses began Wednesday night to evacuate the thousands of pro-regime Syrian civilians and fighters from Foua and Kefraya, the two beleaguered localities in the country, surrounded for the past three years by rebels and rebels. jihadists, according to AFP. An AFP correspondent on the spot counted about twenty buses leaving these localities in the framework of an agreement between Russia, allied with the regime, and Turkey, support of the rebels. Fighters and civilians were visible in the vehicles, as well as a number of personal belongings. The evacuations concern all the inhabitants of the two villages who must be transferred to territories under government control in the neighboring province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). The villages of Foua and Kafraya (northwest), mostly of Shiite confession and acquired by the regime, are besieged by rebels and the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, which controls today a vast majority of the province. On Wednesday, on the road to the two villages, a besieged zone official and a Hayat Tahrir al-Shahm official had kicked off operations. Barricades of land blocking the pbadage were removed and 84 buses were allowed to enter, said an AFP correspondent. "Dozens of buses and ambulances have entered the two localities of Foua and Kefraya to rescue the inhabitants besieged by the terrorists," the official Sana news agency reported, using the term usually used by the regime to describe all insurgents. . In total, some 6,900 people, civilians and combatants, must be evacuated, according to a source within Hayat Tahrir al-Cham. In return, 1,500 inmates will be released from the regime's jails. In April 2017, during an evacuation operation, dozens of residents of Foua and Kafraya were killed on the road in a suicide bombing. (Belga)

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