Updated April 16, 2017 00:29:30
An explosion near a convoy of buses transporting people between four besieged Syrian towns has left at least 16 people dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported.
The blast hit the Rashidin area on Aleppo's outskirts where dozens of buses, carrying mostly Shiite residents of two villages that are being evacuated in a deal between warring sides, were waiting to enter the city.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion appeared to have been caused by a bomb.
A military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said a suicide attacker had detonated a car bomb near the convoy.
Pictures posted on state media showed what appeared to be the aftermath of the explosion, with bodies lying on the ground and fires belching out thick black plumes of smoke.
Buses were blackened by the blast with their windows blown out.
Syrian state TV said an unknown number of people had been killed and wounded when a car bomb was detonated.
The buses had been waiting since late on Friday outside the city while the evacuation deal halted.
Evacuation deal had critics
As part of the deal, hundreds of rebels and their families were being evacuated from the town of Madaya near Damascus, and were taken to the Government-held city of Aleppo.
From there they will travel to Idlib province — an insurgent stronghold.
In return, pro-government fighters and residents from the Shiite villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, both surrounded by Idlib rebels, had left the area and reached Aleppo's outskirts before the explosion was reported.
Syria's opposition had said the evacuation deals, which have included areas of Aleppo and a district in the western city of Homs, amount to forced displacement of President Bashar al-Assad's opponents from Syria's main urban centres.
Reuters
First posted April 15, 2017 23:44:57
0 comments :
Post a Comment