april 18 2017 bus bombing marks end to tragic evacuation deal in syria. for two syrian mothers on opposite sides of a two-year siege their evacuation from the blockade was supposed to end their suffering but that was not the case in wake of a bombing outside the city of aleppo. noha a shiite and samira a sunni were besieged for nearly two years on each side of syrias civil war. at the weekend they finally escaped the suffocating blockades under an evacuation agreement but their ordeal was not over. as they waited at two transit points miles apart outside aleppo a bomb attack hit nohas bus convoy killing more than 120 people including dozens of children. after ambulances rushed off the wounded new buses arrived and the two convoys eventually reached their destinations one in regime territory and the other in rebel territory. in the hours leading up to saturdays attacks the two women spoke to reuters about what they had left behind their families being split up and the likelihood they would never return home. reuters was not allowed back past security to try to find noha after the blast and lost contact with samira after speaking to her earlier on another evacuees phone. weve lost everything. we hope to go back one day but i dont expect we wil said noha 45 asking not to be identified by her last name. noha left al-foua one of two shiite villages besieged by syrian insurgents in idlib province with her two youngest children and 5000 other people under a deal between the syrian regime and armed opposition. in exchange 2000 sunni residents and rebel fighters from the regime-besieged town of madaya near damascus samiras hometown were given safe passage out and bussed to idlib province a rebel stronghold via aleppo. thousands of syrians have been evacuated from besieged areas in recent months under deals between bashar al-assads regime and rebels fighting for six years to unseat him. rebels say it amounts to forced displacement of assads opponents from syrias main urban centers in the west of the country and engenders demographic change because most of the opposition and syrias population are sunni. there was little choice. we had to leave we were scared said samira 55 who was traveling with her five adult sons. she had feared her sons would be arrested or forced to join the syrian regime forces and fight once troops and officials of the damascus regime moved into the town. like noha samira was relieved to have escaped a crushing siege which had caused widespread hunger and in the case of madaya starvation but had left everything behind including family. we owned three houses farmland and three shops in madaya town. now we dont have a single syrian pound she said. her daughter pregnant with a third child had stayed in madaya because her husband had vowed to live and die there she said. samira has not heard from her own husband for nearly four years after he was arrested by the regime. with nothing left and no place to stay in idlib other than camps samira said she would try to migrate joining the 5 million syrian refugees who have left since the war broke out in 2011. more than 6 million are internally displaced. i dont want to be in idlib we know no one there. also you dont know when or where the jets might bomb she said referring to the heavy bombardment by russian and syrian warplanes of rebel-held areas in idlib including a recent alleged poison gas attack. the plan is to try to get to turkey to leave syria for good. noha was also heading into the unknown. i dont know where well live whether they (authorities) have anything set up. at the very least we just want to be safe. the children jump at night from the sound of rockets. we just want security wherever they take us she said. her adult son and daughter had stayed in al-foua but were hoping to leave in the next stage of the evacuation deal. nohas husband had been killed but she did not say how. both women said they would never have left their hometowns but for the strangling sieges which caused severe food and medicine shortages and the gradual change of control in each area. on saturday a deadly explosion killed at least 100 including children regime 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 regime loyalists evacuated the day before waited restlessly for hours as opposition fighters guarded the area while negotiators bickered over the completion of the transfer deal. only meters away hundreds of evacuees from pro-rebels areas also loitered in a walled-off parking lot guarded by regime troops. asharq al-awsat asharq al-awsat is the worlds premier pan-arab daily newspaper printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. launched in london in 1978 asharq al-awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-arab and international affairs offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire arab world.
bus bombing marks end to tragic evacuation deal in syria