UK joins mission to rescue Syrian White Helmets

Britain and Israel joined border operation to save volunteer group members as Assad forces tighten grip

More than 400 White Helmet rescuers and their families have been pulled out of Syria and are safe in Jordan after a Uk-backed secret mission. The rescuers, seen as traitors by the regime, took refuge in the Golan Heights. They will be resettled in Canada, Germany and the UK.

HUNDREDS of White Helmet search and rescue volunteers and their families have themselves been rescued from Syria via Israel in a secret overnight operation backed by the UK.

The group, which had been stranded in the volatile Golan Heights region on the Israeli border, were moved after diplomatic efforts to secure safe passage. They will now be resettled in Canada, Germany and the UK.

The group of more than 400, including women and children, was pulled out of Syria into Israel late on Saturday night under cover of darkness, in an unprecedented operation known to just a few people until after it was successfully concluded.

The group were then moved to Jordan, where they will stay until they fly out to their new lives.

There was some uncertainty over the numbers rescued, with initial reports yesterday morning saying 800 Syrians had entered Jordan. Jordanian officials then revised that number down to 422 by the afternoon.

The group inside Jordan is under guard in a secure location and the country has received assurances that they will be resettled through the UN’S refugee agency within three months.

The rescue of the first responders, officially known as the Syrian Civil Defence, came as a result of discreet high-level negotiations between the US, UK and other allies.

With opposition-held territory in Syria dwindling by the day, the group had gathered in the shadow of Israel’s border fence, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians have sought safety from air strikes.

The Assad regime is known to exact ruthless punishment on those it considers traitors, including the White Helmets, whose work involved pulling bodies from the wreckage left by government air and missile strikes

The Israeli military, which facilitated the group’s passage, called it “an exceptional humanitarian effort”. Over several years, Israeli soldiers have evolved a slick routine in which the Golan fence is opened and approved Syrians are permitted through, one by one, under the gaze of Israeli sharpshooters in night-vision goggles.

It is thought that the White Helmets and their families entered Israel this way, though never before have so many Syrians crossed at once.

Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, and Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary, issued a joint statement on the operation yesterday.

It read: “White Helmets have been the target of attacks and, due to their high profile, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers required immediate protection. We therefore took steps with the aim of affording that protection to as many of the volunteers and families as possible.”

The ministers cited the more than 115,000 lives thought to have been saved by the White Helmets, whom they lauded as “brave and selfless”.

A message from a member of the White Helmet group inside Jordan said that most of those rescued expected to be relocated to Canada. There was no confirmation of how many of the group the UK had agreed to take.

Jordan, which already hosts at least 600,000 Syrian refugees, says it is unable to accept any more.

Despite this, the country has also offered temporary access to a group of Al Jazeera journalists spirited out of southern Syria in the hours before the Assad government reasserted control of the border.

The group of White Helmets are expected to follow a similar process to the journalists, remaining at a hotel in Amman until they leave on one-way tickets to the UK, Germany or Canada.

Israel officially maintains a non-intervention policy on Syria but has offered humanitarian aid through its border fence and has permitted the entry of more than 3,000 Syrians for medical treatment since 2013.

The Western-funded White Helmets operate in opposition-controlled areas of Syria, digging people out of the wreckage left behind by barrel bombs and air strikes.

They gained worldwide renown in 2016 when a British documentary on the group won an Academy Award.