Thousands head home after ceasefire deal in south Syria
daraa (syria) — Thousands of displaced Syrians were heading home on Saturday after rebels and the government reached a ceasefire deal in the south following more than two weeks of deadly bombardment.
Under the agreement announced on Friday after talks between rebels and regime ally Moscow, opposition fighters will hand over territory in the southern province of Daraa near the Jordanian border.
Calm reigned over the region on Saturday as the two sides finalised the ceasefire deal, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group. “People have started to return to their homes since yesterday” from the Jordanian border, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
“More than 20,000 people have set off for home so far, heading to areas for which an accord has been reached in the southeastern Daraa countryside,” he said.
But others “are scared to return to regime-controlled areas, fearing their children will be arrested,” Abdel Rahman said.
More than 150 civilians have been killed in the regime bombing campaign on Daraa since June 19, the Observatory says, and trust in the government does not run high.
Osama Al Homsi, 26, said he was hesitant to return to his hometown of Jeeza in southeastern Daraa after the deal. “Of course I support the agreement to stop the fighting and bloodshed,” said the young man, who sought shelter from the bombardment in a field to the south of Daraa city.
“But what is frightening is that it comes with no UN guarantees... The Russian and the Syrian regime offer no safety,” he said.
Only when it is clear the ceasefire has really been implemented and “if we are guaranteed that no one will pursue us, will we want to return,” Homsi said.
Under the accord, rebels are expected to hand over their heavy weapons, while those who reject the agreement will be bused with their families to opposition-held areas in the north of the country, state media has said.
A Daesh group affiliate, which holds a small pocket in the southwest of Daraa, is excluded from the deal.
Government forces will also take over “all observation posts along the Syrian-Jordanian border”, state media said on Friday, hours after the regime regained control of the vital Nassib border crossing with Jordan.
On Saturday, a correspondent
Of course I support the agreement to stop the fighting and bloodshed. But what is frightening is that it comes with no UN guarantees... The Russian and the Syrian regime offer no safety Osama Al Homsi, A displaced Syrian
saw Syrian army forces and Russian military police deployed at the crossing after more than three years under opposition control.
One of the arches of the key frontier post was damaged, mangled metal wires sprouting from the concrete structure.
The agreement is expected to be implemented in three stages, rebel spokesman Hussein Abazeed said, first for eastern Daraa, the provincial capital and then the west of the province.
“Assad got what he wanted from the deal,” analyst Nick Heras said.
He obtained “control over the Syrian-Jordanian border areas in Daraa, the gradual disarmament of the rebels’ heavier weapons, and the opportunity to rebuild his government’s influence in southern Syria,” the analyst at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security said.