Mustafa Çağlayan
29 December 2015•Update: 29 December 2015
NEW YORK
More than 450 people, including those seriously injured and their families, were evacuated from three besieged areas in Syria on Monday under a local swap deal, the UN said.
A total of 338 people from the Shia-majority towns of Foua and Kafraya in the northwest of the country and 125 people from opposition-held Zabadani in rural Damascus were evacuated by land through Turkey and Lebanon, respectively.
Those from Foua and Kafraya ended up in Lebanon, and the evacuees from Zabadani traveled to Turkey, from where they will be transferred to Syria.
The transportation of the evacuees occured through the facilitation of the International Committee for the Red Cross, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the UN in Syria, according to a joint statement by these organizations.
“The injured and their companions have been transported to Lebanon and Turkey by aircraft provided by Turkish Airlines,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “With maximum effort and due diligence for the exchange to take place in a functional and safe manner, Turkey rendered the required coordination with the UN and Lebanese officials.”
The Istanbul-based IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, the Lebanese Red Cross, as well as the UN in Turkey and Lebanon were also involved in the operation.
Since early July, pro-Assad forces had besieged opposition-held Zabadani, which lies some 45 kilometers northwest of Damascus. In response to the attacks on Zabadani, opposition forces had encircled Shia-majority Foua and Kafraya in the northeast of Idlib province.
Monday’s swap was part of a cease-fire agreement reached in September with the facilitation of the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura.
“Initiatives like this one bring relief to besieged or isolated communities and have great value,” Mistura said. “They help the perception that a nationwide cease-fire brokered by the members of the International Syria Support Group is doable and that the UN can and will do its part.”
Some 4.5 million people live in hard-to-reach areas across Syria, with nearly 400,000 of them in besieged areas with little or no access to basic supplies or assistance, according to UN figures.
