Toll mounts after car bomb hits evacuees
Syrians struck while leaving held towns
BEIRUT: The death toll in a suicide car bomb attack on buses carrying Syrians evacuated from two besieged government-held towns has risen to at least 112, a monitoring group said yesterday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 98 evacuees from the northern towns of Fua and Kefraya were killed when an explosives-laden vehicle hit their buses at a transit point west of Aleppo on Saturday.
“The suicide bomber was driving a van supposedly carrying aid supplies and detonated near the buses,” the monitoring group said.
It said the remainder of the dead were aid workers and rebels tasked with guarding the buses. It warned the death toll may rise further as “hundreds” more were wounded in the blast.
Dozens of buses carrying several thousand refugees had been stuck by the roadside in the rebel-held town of Rashidin after leaving Fua and Kefraya on Friday under a deal reached between the government and opposition groups.
Fua and Kefraya have been under rebel siege for more than two years. As part of the deal, several hundred people including armed rebels will be transported out of Madaya and Zabadani, towns near Damascus, which are surrounded by pro-government forces.
Syria’s six-year civil war has seen several similar deals, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad says are the best way to end the violence. Rebels say they are being forced to relocate through bombardment and seige.
The government blamed Saturday’s attack on “terrorists” — its catch-all term for opposition groups.
The influential rebel Ahrar al-Sham force denied involvement, with a senior official tweeting: “Our role was to secure civilians not kill them.”
The blast puts the four-town evacuation deal, brokered partly by rebel backer Qatar and government ally Iran, in doubt.
The Observatory said after the bombing that the evacuation process had resumed, but it was not immediately clear yesterday if convoys had restarted their journeys.
The bombing took place as thousands of evacuees from Fua and Kefraya waited to continue their journey to regime-controlled Aleppo, the coastal province of Latakia, or Damascus.
Syria’s war has left more than 320,000 people dead since erupting in 2011, with more than half the population forced from their homes and hundreds of thousands trapped under siege.
It has sucked in regional and international powers and allowed jihadist groups to seize vast areas of the country.
US-backed fighters reached t he outskirts of a key jihadist-held town in northern Syria on Saturday as part of an offensive aimed at the IS bastion of Raqqa.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance supported by a US-led coalition, surrounded Tabqa in early April and have cut its main supply routes. The town and a nearby dam are key prizes in the broader offensive for Raqqa.
An SDF military source said on Saturday clashes were fierce and that the alliance’s forces were “trying to penetrate the town from the east and west”.
SDF fighters are within a few hundred metres of Tabqa and engaged in heavy fighting as IS counter-attacked, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Backed by Russia and local militias, pro-government forces have made a string of recent gains. The government and rebels have brokered a series of deals to evacuate people from besieged areas, which Damascus touts as the best way to end the violence. Rebels say they are forced out by siege and bombardment.
The deal involving the evacuees targeted on Saturday has been beset by delays, and the 5,000 Fua and Kefraya residents had waited in Rashidin for more than a day without moving before the bomb went off, a correspondent said. Around 2,220 evacuees from Madaya and Zabadani were similarly blocked at a transit point in government-held territory, one of said by telephone.
The main opposition High Negotiations Committee condemned the bombing, saying that “terrorism shall end if a political transition takes place”.
Many residents had earlier expressed regret over not knowing when, if ever, they would be able to return to their homes. “It’s terrible to be uprooted like this, to go and live in a place that is not ours,” said Jama Nayef, a vet from Fua.