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 opposition 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 militants, as few are likely to trust guarantees by a Russian government whose fighter jets participated in the month-long bombardment of eastern Ghouta.
“Due to the major escalation with internationally banned weapons accompanied by international silence and inaction, 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 attacks and over 1,500 have died in a month of relentless bombardment. The deal leaves one city, Douma, still under opposition control, with an estimated 150,000 civilians believed to be living there.
Under the terms of the deal, a ceasefire will come into 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 deportation of up 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 territory 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 supervision, 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 uprising 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 seeking an uncertain fate.
The displacement deal will bring the campaign in eastern Ghouta, which was condemned as a “monstrous annihilation� by the UN high commissioner for human rights, closer to conclusion, and it will cement the regime’s hold on central and western Syria.