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A fleet of buses has begun transporting tens of thousands of people between four besieged Syrian towns under a deal forged by the warring Syrian Government and rebel forces.
Key points:
- Buses carrying rebel fighters leave Madaya towards Idlib
- Thousands evacuated from pro-government towns headed for Aleppo
- Critics say the evacuations are forced displacement
Under a swap deal brokered by Iran and Qatar they are being evacuated after long sieges that have led to a humanitarian situation described as catastrophic by the United Nations.
Activists say after postponements the buses have now started to move carrying the first of the 30,000 people involved.
Critics of this deal and others like it say they amount to forced demographic change.
About 5,000 people were evacuated on 75 buses from two pro-Government towns in northern Syria to the nearby city of Aleppo, said Abdul Hakim Baghdadi, who helped negotiate the arrangement.
The predominantly Shiite Foua and Kfraya have remained loyal to the Syrian Government while the surrounding Idlib province has come under hard-line Sunni, rebel rule.
Near the capital of Damascus, some 60 buses carrying 2,350 opposition fighters, activists and their families departed from two opposition-held towns in the direction of Idlib, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group and Syrian state media.
If the evacuations are completed, they would be the first in number of rounds stretching over two months to evacuate some 30,000 Syrians from besieged areas.
Another 3,000 people are expected to be bused out of Foua and Kfraya on Friday evening, according to Mr Baghdadi.
Meanwhile, buses carrying rebel fighters and their families left the Government-besieged town of Madaya, near Damascus, and close to the Lebanese border, according to both the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a pro-government military media unit.
"We've moved. We're at the outskirts of the towns," said Muhammad Darwish, who provides medical care in Madaya.
He was forced to leave the university in the final year of his dentistry studies when he joined the popular movement to unseat President Bashar al-Assad six years ago. The country has since descended into a harsh civil war.
Deals amount to forced demographic change: opposition
The evacuation of nearby Zabadani, another town surrounded by Government forces and their allies, appeared to have been delayed.
No buses had yet left the town, but that evacuation was expected to begin later on Friday.
Madaya and Zabadani are the latest in a constellation of towns once held by the opposition around Damascus to submit to government rule.
Pro-government forces have held the two towns under twin sieges for nearly two years, leading residents to hunt rodents and boil grass to stave off hunger in the winter months.
Photo:
Fighting near Madaya has caused a food shortage that has left babies malnourished. (Supplied)
Photos of children gaunt with hunger shocked the world and gave new urgency to UN relief operations in Syria.
Similar evacuation deals have been reached in recent months, with Syrian rebels leaving areas long-besieged by Mr Assad's forces, sometimes in exchange for Shiite residents moving from towns surrounded by the mostly Sunni insurgents.
The opposition says the deals amount to forced demographic change and deliberate displacement of Mr Assad's enemies away from the main cities of western Syria.
However, residents in Zabadani and Madaya said conditions in their towns had become too difficult to bear.
Wires
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-politics, government-and-politics, syrian-arab-republic
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