Hundreds more evacuated as Syrian regime seizes towns

HUNDREDS of Syrian rebels and civilians were bussed out of a second pocket of the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus yesterday after years of siege and weeks of heavy bombardment.

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

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 at the hands of President Bashar al-assad’s forces.

Rebels began evacuating another pocket of Eastern Ghouta on Thursday, with around 7,000 people leaving the town of Harasta, bound for the rebelheld Idlib province in northern Syria. Close to 11 million people have been forced from their homes by the violence that has swept through the country since the government began cracking down on Arab Spring protests in 2011. The government has restored its authority in most of the major population centres across the country, but there are few indications that refugees and the internally displaced are returning to their homes in large numbers. ♦ Turkey said yesterday that the northern Syrian town of Tal Rifaat would be the next target in its cross-border military campaign after the capture of Afrin from Kurdish militia.

A Syrian woman and child walk down a destroyed street as civilians and rebels prepare to evacuate one of the few remaining rebel-held pockets in Arbin, Eastern Ghouta