Fighters, civilians escape besieged Syrian areas under UN deal

PanARMENIAN.Net - Buses and ambulances evacuated about 450 Islamist fighters and civilians from two rebel-held areas besieged by Syrian government forces and carried them across into Turkey and Lebanon on Monday, December 28, sources at the border crossings said, according to Reuters.

The evacuations took place under a United Nations-sponsored agreement, part of efforts by the UN to set up local deals on ceasefires and safe passage as stepping stones toward a wider peace accord in Syria's civil war.

More than 125 fighters from the besieged rebel-held town of Zabadani near the border with Lebanon were en route to Beirut airport to board a plane to Turkey.

Simultaneously, around 330 civilians and wounded fighters trapped in two pro-government Shi’ite villages in Idlib, northwest Syria, were heading to the Turkish city of Hatay to take a plane to Beirut, aid workers said.

In return for allowing the rebels to leave, the deal allows the government of President Bashar al-Assad to restore control over areas that had been in rebel hands for the past four years.

In Zabadani, a once popular resort city now in ruins, relief workers and rebel fighters who have been holed up for months helped carry several wounded young men in wheelchairs onto ambulances.

Relatives and well-wishers who had waited for hours on the Lebanese border cheered buses carrying the fighters as they drove by toward Beirut airport, and some families wept as they strained for glimpses of their loved ones, a witness said.