Syrian rebels exit second pocket of eastern Ghouta

BEIRUT — Hundreds of Syrian rebels and civilians were bused out of a second pocket of the besieged eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus on Sunday after rebels agreed to leave several towns and villages after years of siege and weeks of heavy bombardment.

Close to 900 people were evacuated from the southernmost of three eastern Ghouta pockets on Sunday, according to state-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV, following some 1,000 fighters, family members, and other civilians who departed late Saturday, as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

They left in a fleet of buses, including the lime-green municipal buses that have come to symbolize defeat for the Syrian opposition and the rearrangement of Syria’s population as the government takes back control of cities around the country. Fighters dressed in fatigues slumped in their seats and hid their faces from roadside news cameras, while children peered out of the open windows.

Many are unsure if they will ever be able to return.

“We are going on an unknown journey to the refugee camps in Idlib. We don’t know what is our fate there,” said Muhammad Najem, 15, in a video tweet.

The evacuation is modelled on others in which rebels have surrendered swathes of territory around the capital and other major cities after years of siege and bombardment. They have been helpless against the government’s overwhelming artillery and air power, boosted with support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Russia’s air force.

Fighters loyal to the al-Qaidalinked Levant Liberation Committee also began evacuating eastern Ghouta on Sunday, according to the Observatory.

Rebels with the Islam Army faction still controlled Douma, the largest town in eastern Ghouta, and the third and last pocket in the eastern Ghouta enclave. A delegation representing the town was in talks with Russia to reach a settlement that would have Russian forces deployed inside.