Thousands of civilians and fighters will be evacuated under Russian guarantees or remain and accept Bashar al-Assads regime
A ceasefire deal that will allow the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and fighters under Russian guarantees has been reached in the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta.
The agreement, which was confirmed by the spokesman of the second-largest rebel group in the area, will allow civilians and fighters to either leave for northern Syria or remain in their homes and reconcile with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, with guarantees from Moscow that they will not be prosecuted for opponent activities.
In effect, the deal will displace thousands of civilians to the northern province of Idlib, which is under partial control by al-Qaida-linked activists, as few are likely to trust guarantees by a Russian government whose fighter jets participated in the month-long bombardment of eastern Ghouta.
Timeline
The Syrian war
Unprecedented protests demand civil liberties and the release of political prisoner after four decades of repressive rule by the Assad family. The regime represses demonstrations in Damascus and the southern city of Deraa but protests continue.
Defecting army colonel Riad al-Asaad decides up the Turkey-based rebel Free Syrian Army. Islamist groups join the revolt.
Regime forces-out take control of the rebel stronghold in Homs after a few months of bombardment. Other bloody operations are carried out , notably in the central city of Hama, after massive anti-regime protests.
FSA fighters launch a battle for Damascus but the government holds firm.
More than 1,400 people die in a chemical weapon attack on rebel-held districts near Damascus.
The US and Assad ally Russia concur a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, averting punitive US strikes against the regime.
Hostilities between jihadists and rebel groups turn into an open war in the north. The group that will become known as Islamic State takes Raqqa- the first provincial capital to fall out of regime control- from rebel forces.
A US-led coalition launches airstrikes against Isis in Syria. The ten-strikes benefit Kurdish groups, which since 2013 have run autonomous administrations in Kurdish-majority areas.
Russia launches airstrikes in support of Assad's troops, who are on the back foot. Russian firepower assistances turn the tables for the regime, which begins to retake rebel-held territory.
The regime retakes Syria's second city, Aleppo.
Russia and Iran, as backers of the Syrian regime, and Turkey, a supporter of the rebels, organise talks in Kazakhstan, between representatives of both sides. The process leads to the creation of four “de-escalation zones”.
A sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun kills more than 80 people, prompting Washington to attack a regime airbase.
Further complicating an already drawn-out conflict, Turkey launches an operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units which, with US support, played a crucial role in beating back Isis.
Regime launchings a ferocious assault on the remaining rebel-held enclave near Damascus, eastern Ghouta. In under four weeks, the Russian-backed onslaught kills more than 1,200 civilians.
” Due to the major escalation with internationally banned weapons accompanied by international silence and inactivity, and the intensification of the mass killing by Russia and the militias of Assad and Iran … an agreement has been reached after direct negotiations with the Russians ,” said Waiel Olwan, a spokesman for the rebel group Faylaq al-Rahman.
The deal affects four major towns in Ghouta- Arbin, Zamalka, Ain Terma and Jobar, which are under Faylaq al-Rahman's control.
The besieged region has suffered a five-year blockade, chemical weapons assaults and over 1,500 have died in a month of relentless bombardment. The deal leaves one city, Douma, still under opponent control, with an estimated 150,000 civilians believed to be living there.
Under the terms of the bargain, a ceasefire is to take effect on Friday, with an immediate evacuation of wounded people. Then fighters and civilians who wish to leave will do so under the supervision of Russian military police, with the fighters allowed to carry their light weapons and civilians their belongings.
Those who remain are supposed to be protected from persecution by the Syrian regime, with Russian guarantees, and Russian military police will deploy in the towns.
The agreement is the second forced transfer deal to be reached in Ghouta. The first was concluded with the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, which agreed the expulsion ofup to 7,500 fighters and their families from the Harasta neighbourhood after receiving assurances from Russia that the civilians who remain will not be harassed.
Eastern Ghouta was divided into three rapidly shrinking patches of province as part of the government's campaign to reclaim the last opposition stronghold near the capital Damascus. One was controlled by Ahrar al-Sham, the other by Faylaq al-Rahman, and the third, comprising the large city of Douma, by the Jaysh al-Islam group. The last group has yet to reach a similar deal.
The agreement mirrors the forced displacement of residents of east Aleppo in 2016 after a debilitating six-month siege and brutal military offensive. About 30,000 people were displaced at the time to the northern province of Idlib under Russian supervising, also after Moscow participated in the campaign of violence.
Several similar “reconciliation” deals have led to the forced exile of opposition communities to the province, mixing them with other hardline Islamist groups and jihadists in what observers suspect is a deliberate strategy to create a” kill box” in a region almost entirely out of government control since 2015 and reaffirm the regime's narrative that the mutiny it faced was a foreign and jihadist plot.
About 1.6 million people live in Idlib, along with another million of internally displaced people from other parts of Syria.
The UN estimates that nearly 400,000 people were in eastern Ghouta before the offensive. About 150,000 have already fled through government-controlled crossings without any international guarantees, preferring to escape certain death under regime bombardment by attempting an uncertain fate.
The displacement deal will bring the campaign in eastern Ghouta, which was denounced as a” monster destruction” by the UN high commissioner for human rights, closer to conclusion, and it will cement the regime's hold on central and western Syria.
