A suicide car bombing has killed at least 24 people in an attack near buses for Syrians evacuated from two besieged government-held towns, a monitor says.
The Syrian civil war is the deadliest conflict the 21st century has witnessed thus far.
A Syrian man who arrived a day earlier from government-held Fuaa and Kafraya receives treatment from the Red Crescent as he waits with thousands of others in rebel-held Rashidin, west of Aleppo city, following delays in evacuating them as the hard-won evacuation deal ran into trouble. (Omar haj kadour, AFP)
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Beirut – A suicide car bombing killed at least 24 people on Saturday
in an attack near buses for Syrians evacuated from two besieged government-held
towns, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said the attack in Rashidin,
west of Aleppo, targeted residents evacuated from the northern towns of Fuaa and Kafraya under a deal reached between
the regime and rebels.
An AFP reporter in rebel-held Rashidin saw several bodies, body parts and
blood scattered on the ground.
« The suicide bomber was
driving a van supposedly carrying aid supplies and detonated near the
buses, » the Observatory said.
It warned that the death toll
was likely to rise given the « several dozen
wounded » at the blast site.
State television said the car
bombing had been carried out by « terrorist groups », a term the regime
applies to all armed opposition groups.
It was not immediately clear if
rebels at the transit point were among the dead.
The attack took place as
thousands of evacuees from the besieged government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya waited to continue their
journey to regime-controlled Aleppo, the coastal province of Latakia, or
Damascus.
More than 5 000 people who had
lived under crippling siege for more than two years left the two towns, along
with 2 200 evacuated from rebel-held Madaya and Zabadani, on Friday.
They were headed for regime or rebel-held areas via government-held
second city Aleppo.
Thousands of evacuees from Fuaa and Kafraya were stuck on the road in Rashidin when the bomb went off.
Left stranded
The evacuation, brokered by
regime ally Iran and rebel backer Qatar, is set to see more than 30 000 people
evacuated in two stages.
The deal had stipulated that in
the first stage 8 000 people, including 2 000 loyalist fighters, leave the two
towns but in the event just 5 000, including 1 300 fighters left, the
Britain-based Observatory said.
Evacuees were left stranded as
differences emerged over the number of loyalist fighters leaving, a rebel
source said, refusing to elaborate as « negotiations are under way ».
Thousands of evacuees from
Madaya and Zabadani were also stuck in government-controlled Ramusa, south of Aleppo.
The deal to evacuate the towns
was the latest in a string of such agreements, touted by the government as the
best way to end the fighting. Rebels say they have been forced out by siege and
bombardment.
The regime has retaken several
key rebel strongholds including eastern Aleppo since a Russian military
intervention in September 2015.
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