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BEIRUT (AP) — Rebel and government forces agreed
Saturday to allow "humanitarian cases" to leave two besieged
government-held Shiite villages in northwestern Syria, a step that would allow
the resumption of civilian and rebel evacuations from eastern Aleppo which were
suspended a day earlier, Hezbollah's media arm and a monitoring group said.
The opposition's Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said the evacuation of some 4,000 people, including wounded, from the villages
of Foua and Kfarya was expected to start Saturday. It later reported that 29
buses were heading toward the two villages to start the evacuation process,
adding that insurgents in the area rejected allowing 4,000 people to leave and
saying they will only allow 400 people to be evacuated.
The Syrian army said another 25 buses left later
Saturday heading to the two villages.
It was not immediately clear whether the alleged
evacuation limits set by the insurgents in the two villages would undermine
evacuation efforts in Aleppo.
Hezbollah fighters have joined the Syrian war fighting
along with President Bashar Assad's forces. Opposition activists blamed the
Lebanese group for blocking the main road south of Aleppo and blocking
evacuations from rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the city.
The Aleppo evacuation was suspended Friday after a
report of shooting at a crossing point into the enclave by both sides of the
conflict. Thousands were evacuated before the process was suspended.
An amateur video posted online by opposition activists
Friday showed scores of men, women and children running away from a crossing
point for fear of being shot at. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to
other reporting of the events by The Associated Press.
The Syrian government has said that the village
evacuations and the one in eastern Aleppo must be done simultaneously, but the
rebels say there's no connection.
Hezbollah's Military Media said the new deal also
includes the rebel-held towns of Madaya and Zabadani near the border with
Lebanon where tens of thousands of people are trapped under siege by government
forces and the Lebanese group.
A Syrian state TV correspondent, speaking from Aleppo,
said Saturday that the main condition for the Aleppo evacuation to resume is
for residents of Foua and Kfarya to be allowed to leave.
In Moscow, The Russian foreign ministry said Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday called his counterparts in Turkey and Iran
to discuss the Syria crisis. The ministry's read-out said all three discussed
the Aleppo evacuation and humanitarian efforts and stressed "the
importance of continuing to coordinate efforts of the international community
to provide humanitarian aid to those in need." They agreed to meet soon.
Separately, Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu
spoke by telephone Saturday with his Iranian and Syrian counterparts, as well
as the chief of the Turkish intelligence service, to discuss the crisis in
Aleppo, including "concrete steps to create conditions for a lasting
cease-fire in Syria."
The International Committee of the Red Cross said
thousands of people including women, children, the sick and injured, remain
trapped in eastern Aleppo waiting in freezing temperatures for the evacuation
to resume. The ICRC said it is aware a new agreement could be reached soon and
has called on all parties on the ground to "do their utmost to end this
limbo."
"We're ready to resume facilitating the evacuation
according to our humanitarian mandate. But we now expect all the parties on the
ground to provide us with solid guarantees in order to keep the operation
going," said ICRC's head of delegation in Syria, Marianne Gasser, who is
currently in Aleppo. "They're the ones who have to protect the people and
provide safe passage. We cannot abandon these people."
The cease-fire and evacuation from east Aleppo earlier
this week marked the end of the rebels' most important stronghold in the
country's civil war, now in its sixth year. The suspension demonstrated the
fragility of the cease-fire deal, in which civilians and fighters in the few
remaining blocks of the rebel enclave were to be taken to opposition-held territory
nearby.
In announcing the suspension, Syrian state TV said
Friday that rebels were trying to smuggle out captives who had been seized in
the enclave after ferocious battles with troops supporting Assad.
Reports differed on how many people remain in the
Aleppo enclave, ranging from 15,000 to 40,000 civilians, along with an
estimated 6,000 fighters.
With the agreement of all parties, the Syrian Arab Red
Crescent and the ICRC have already managed to evacuate around 10,000 people,
many of whom are in a critical condition, the ICRC statement said. As tension
between parties escalated yesterday, the evacuation was put on hold leaving
thousands of people still in eastern Aleppo, it added.
There also were conflicting reports on the number of
evacuees who left on Thursday and early Friday from east Aleppo. Syrian state
TV put it at more than 9,000 while Russia, a key Assad ally, said over 9,500
people, including more than 4,500 rebels, were taken out.
In neighboring Turkey, several people crossed in from
Syria but it was not immediately clear where they were coming. One woman said
she was among the first batch of civilians who were able to leave east Aleppo.
Suad Hamso said she left Aleppo during the first
ceasefire but couldn't remember the exact day. Her daughters stayed put but
managed to leave later, she said. She hopes to join one of her two children
already living in Turkey.
AP
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