Al-Zabadani-al-Foua displacement deal is being implemented, despite a halt in the process caused by recent car bomb attack that hit a bus convoy carrying pro-Assad population.
Part two of the first batch left on Wednesday the pro-Assad Kefraya and al-Foua towns in Idlib countryside heading to the opposition-controlled al-Rashideen area. The leaving buses carried pro-Assad militants, and will wait in al-Rashideen until the displaced populations of, the Assad-besieged al-Zabadani and Madaya towns reach al-Ramousseh, a regime-controlled area southwest of Aleppo.
According to Orient News correspondents, al-Zabadani town has become completely emptied of its population as the last batch left today. Activists say it now brings to minds the city of Daraya in Damascus western countryside when it was emptied of its population in a similar deal in August last year.
(A photo taken from one of the buses displacing the populations of al-Zabadani and Madaya to northern Syria. Wednesday, April 19. 2017 - Orient photo)
The last batch of al-Zabadani population headed to northern Syria. It includes 158 Free Syrian Army fighters. Two buses also left Madaya town bound for the same destination.
Meanwhile, about 3000 people left the towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib countryside heading to al-Rashideen area, including pro-Assad militants, awaiting the second swap which is due to take place today.
As a part of the deal, 750 detainees held in Assad regime detention centers, are supposed to be released.
(A photo taken from one of the buses displacing the population of al-Zabadani to northern Syria. Wednesday, April 19. 2017 - Orient photo)
The deal, which has become known to many as the ‘Deal of the Four Towns’ stipulates that the populations of the four towns, the pro-opposition al-Zabadani and Madaya and the pro-Assad Kefraya and Foua, should leave in several stages.
Al-Zabadani and Madaya populations would leave to opposition-held areas in northern Syria, while Kefraya and Foua populations would head to regime-controlled areas in Aleppo or Damascus countryside.
The recent stage was underway on Sunday when an explosion hit a bus convoy carrying Kefraya and Foua populations, killing 120 people and injuring dozens of others, in addition to dozens killed or injured from opposition fighters who were guarding the convoy. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.