Russia: Over 105,000 civilians have fled Eastern Ghouta

Hundreds of fighters and civilians from Harasta in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta sit on busses on March 23, 2018 after a deal was struck with the opposition to evacuate a second pocket of the rebel enclave on the outskirts of Damascus.(AFP)

MOSCOW/BEIRUT: Russia’s Defense Ministry said more than 105,000 people have left Syria’s Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave, including another 700 on Saturday, since regime forces began an assault to retake it a month ago, RIA news agency reported, citing the military.
RIA referred to evacuations taking place during “humanitarian pauses.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main ally in the conflict, ordered a daily five-hour cease-fire and the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to allow civilians to leave Eastern Ghouta.
In the event, the offensive — among the fiercest of the seven-year civil war — was largely carried out in defiance of international pleas to halt and honor a truce, and about 90 percent of Eastern Ghouta is back under regime control.
Eastern Ghouta was once the most significant opposition bastion on the edge of Damascus, but opposition fighters are now left with less than 10 percent of their onetime stronghold.
The regime has been implementing a “leave or die” strategy in the enclave, reducing large areas of its towns to rubble with airstrikes and artillery fire but keeping open the offer of evacuation.
The onslaught has killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The fighters leaving the Eastern Ghouta towns will also release several thousand captured Syrian soldiers, pro-regime media reported.
The Observatory said there were also negotiations with the Jaish Al-Islam rebel group that controls Douma to release prisoners.
The regime’s media said Syrian fighters began evacuating a second part of Eastern Ghouta on Saturday, in the latest such deal this week for the former opposition bastion.
“Several buses carrying 500 fighters and their families have reached the Arbeen crossing, in preparation for their departure from Ghouta,” pro-regime media reported.
Once more buses gather at the Arbeen crossing, the full convoy was expected to cross to opposition zones in northern Syria.
Early on Saturday, bulldozers removed giant sand barriers from a main road in the town of Harasta that will be used by the fighters and their relatives to make their way to the country’s north.
The regime-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said a corridor was being prepared for Faylaq Al-Rahman members and their relatives to leave the towns of Zamalka, Arbeen, Ein Tarma and Jobar.
The evacuations come after thousands streamed out of Harasta, the first pocket after a similar negotiated deal for the evacuation of armed fighters and civilians. On Friday night, Harasta was void of fighters for the first time in six years.
“The city of Harasta in Eastern Ghouta is free of terrorism,” SCMM said referring to opposition fighters that the regime refers to as terrorists.
Faylaq Al-Rahman said in a statement that opposition fighters and their relatives who decide to leave Eastern Ghouta will head to opposition-held parts of northern Syria while civilians who choose to stay will be guaranteed safety.
It said that Russian military police will deploy in Faylaq Al-Rahman-controlled areas including the Arbeen, Zamalka, Ein Tarma and Jobar. A prisoner exchange will take place between the group and the regime, the group added.
Pro-regime TV said Faylaq Al-Rahman will hand over maps of underground tunnels as well as others marking mines planted by the group in areas it controlled.
On Feb. 18, a concerted military offensive, backed by Russian airstrikes, squeezed the fighters and civilians in the area under an intense bombing campaign and tightened the siege. The UN estimated that nearly 400,000 people remained in the enclave before the latest offensive began.
The regime’s assault triggered a mass movement of people trying to escape the violence in the Damascus suburbs.
After the departure of Faylaq Al-Rahman fighters, the only opposition-held pocket in Eastern Ghouta will be the town of Douma which is controlled by the powerful Army of Islam group.
On Saturday, hundreds more left Douma to regime-controlled areas including 700 regime supporters that the group had been holding for years, according to SCMM.
In the opposition-held northwestern city of Idlib, a car bomb exploded near a court building killing at least six people and wounding 25, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense.
In the capital Damascus, a mortar shell hit the Fayhaa soccer stadium, killing footballer Samir Massoud, who used to play for the Army Club, and wounding six other people.