Buses to evacuate thousands of Syrian villages

More than 100 buses arrived yesterday to evacuate thousands of people from two Syrian Loyalist villages besieged by rebels in the northwest, under an agreement in which the government is expected to release hundreds of detainees.
al-Foua and Kefraya will be emptied of all their residents and fighters, said a commander of the regional alliance who backs President Bashar al-Assad.
But at nightfall the buses had not yet begun to move with their pbadengers. ] The villages have been besieged for years by rebels in Idlib province in the latter part of Syria held by insurgents
Assad, who is advancing against rebels in the south-west, promised to recover the whole country
. Some 7,000 people must leave the two villages, said Al-Manar TV, led by the Lebanese Hezbollah movement
Population transfers have been a common feature of the Syrian war of seven years, mainly at the expense of opponents of the 39; Assad. 59002] The conflict killed about half a million people and drove 11 minutes from their homes.
Rebels and civilians were transported out of their cities to the northern insurgent territory, while government forces were advancing with Russia's critical aid. Iran
The opposition has decried it as a systematic policy of forced displacement against those who oppose Assad, who comes from the Shiite Alawite sect.
The conflict took on a sectarian dimension as it widened because of protests against Assad. According to opposition sources, officials of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition led by the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, negotiated the latest exchange
. A source close to the secret talks said separately that Turkey was also involved in the process, which relies on an agreement last year that had not been fully implemented.
The TV reported that 121 buses had entered al-Foua and Kefraya yesterday in the Idlib province, as well as Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) ambulances for sick residents.
The evacuees will include Alawite hostages taken by the rebel factions.
In April of last year, thousands of people were expelled from both villages to the government territory in an agreement.
In exchange, hundreds of residents have left two cities on the border with Lebanon. Madaya and Zabadani, which were in the hands of Sunni rebels at the time and besieged by pro-government forces.
They were transferred to Idlib
But other parts of the agreement – the evacuation of the remaining people -Foua and Kefraya and release of 1,500 detainees from the prisons of & # prisons. State – did not occur at that time.