Over 100 killed during Syria’s troubled population transfer
Blast hits bus depot; negotiators bicker
BEIRUT — A stalled population transfer resumed Saturday after a deadly explosion killed at least 100, including children, government supporters and opposition fighters, at an evacuation point — adding new urgency to the widely criticized operation.
The blast ripped through a bus depot in the al-Rashideen area where thousands of government loyalists evacuated the day before waited for hours, as opposition fighters guarded the area while negotiators bickered over the completion of the transfer deal. Only feet away, hundreds of evacuees from prorebel areas loitered in a parking lot, guarded by government troops.
Footage from the scene showed bodies, including those of fighters, lying alongside buses. Fires raged from vehicles as rescuers struggled to put them out.
The scenes were the last in the unyielding bloodshed Syrians are living through. Earlier this month, at least 89 people were killed in a chemical attack as children foaming at the mouth and adults gasping for breath were also caught on camera.
The mayhem that followed the Saturday attack only deepened the resentment of the transfer criticized as population engineering. It also reflected the chaos surrounding negotiations between the warring parties. The United Nations did not oversee the transfer deal of the villages of Foua and Kfraya, besieged by the rebels, and Madaya and Zabadani, encircled by the government.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but progovernment media and the opposition exchanged accusations, each pointing to foreign interference or conspiracies undermining the deal.
Also Saturday, Russia called for international inspectors to visit Idlib, where the U.S. accused Syrian leader Bashar Assad of carrying out a deadly chemicalweapons attack.
Syria’s government invited the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to visit the site of the April 4 attack and the air base that the U.S. later bombed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Representatives of United Nations Security Council members, the European Union and the Middle East should travel with the inspectors to ensure a “transparent” investigation, he said Saturday.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered cruise-missile strikes on an air base in Syria last week, and his administration accused Russia of helping to cover up Mr. Assad’s role in the chemicalweapons attack. The Russians said the chemicals were under the control of terrorists, while Mr. Lavrov said Friday he sees “growing evidence” that the incident was staged. Russia hasn’t publicly provided any proof to back that up.