As Syrian rebels quit Ghouta, Douma stands alone

Rebel fighters gather and pray before they leave, at the city limits of Harasta, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria March 22, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadik

Thousands of fighters and their family members departed neighboring Harasta by bus on Friday after a deal with the government to surrender the town. Insurgents in several other small towns nearby have agreed to leave on similar terms.

State television broadcast footage from a crossing point on Saturday where it said preparations were beginning for those rebels’ departure to northwestern Syria.

It means only Douma is left of the opposition’s eastern Ghouta enclave which a month ago the United Nations said was home to 400,000 people and constituted the rebels’ main stronghold near the capital Damascus.

The army offensive to capture it, heralded by one of the heaviest bombardments in the seven-year war with warplanes, helicopters and artillery, has killed more than 1,600 people, said the war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Residents and rights groups have accused the government of using weapons that kill indiscriminately - inaccurate barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, chlorine gas and incendiary material that sets raging fires.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his close ally Russia, which has helped his air campaign, have denied using all those weapons and say their offensive was needed to end the rule of Islamist militants over civilians.

About 7,000 fighters, along with family members and other civilians who do not wish to come back under Assad’s rule will leave the towns of Zamalka, Arbin and Jobar starting on Saturday, rebels and state media said.

They will go to Idlib province in the northwest - the destination for many such “evacuations” after sieges and ground offensives forced numerous rebel enclaves to surrender in the past two years.

It will not mean an end to their experience of war. Syrian military and Russian air raids on Idlib have increased in the past week, killing dozens of people.

Idlib is also unsettled by fighting between the rebel groups. On Saturday, a blast at a headquarters for al Qaeda’s former affiliate killed at least seven people and injured 25 others.

The rebels leaving the eastern Ghouta towns will also release several thousand captured Syrian army fighters, state media reported. The Observatory said there were also negotiations with the Jaish al-Islam rebel group that controls Douma to release prisoners.

Russia will guarantee that civilians who remain in the areas recaptured by Assad will not be prosecuted, rebels said on Friday. However, rights groups have said some men were forcibly conscripted after fleeing the fighting.

A Russian military webcam at the al-Wafideen crossing point near Douma showed small groups of civilians continuing to flee the danger of further bombardment into government territory on Saturday, carrying children and sacks of belongings.

Russia’s military said on Saturday that more than 105,000 people had left eastern Ghouta, including more than 700 on Saturday.

Tens of thousands have fled their homes in the past week as the bombardment of Douma intensified and refugees from other parts of Ghouta found the basement bomb shelters already too full to take them in.