Evacuation of rebels and their families under way in district of Damascus
Damascus — Syrian rebels and their families began leaving a northern district of the capital on Monday, state television said, in the first evacuations from Damascus in the country’s six-year war. "Armed men and some of their families have begun leaving Barzeh on 40 buses heading towards northern Syria," the channel said in a news alert. It said the evacuations would continue for five days, but that rebel fighters who chose to stay could do so if they registered with the government. The channel did not specify how many people were expected to leave, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said up to 1,500 people — mostly rebels — would leave Barzeh Monday and head to the northwest province of Idlib. The Barzeh evacuation deal was struck late on Sunday night, and dozens of people had gathered in the district from the morning. An AFP photographer in Barzeh saw rebel fighters carrying light weapons looking on as children and women in brightly coloured headscarves pulled sha...
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