BEIRUT: Four Syrian towns are to be evacuated under an agreement between pro-government forces and rebels, in the latest of a series of deals to end crippling years-long sieges.

The agreement, brokered by rebel supporter Qatar and regime ally Iran, is expected to involve more than 30,000 people, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The deal reached late on Tuesday involves Zabadani and Madaya, besieged by regime fighters near Damascus, and Shia-majority Fuaa and Kafraya in north-west Syria that are encircled by rebels.

Such evacuations have been touted by President Bashar al-Assad as a way to end his country’s six-year war, but his opponents say the regime is redrawing Syria’s map with forced displacement.

The conflict has killed more than 320,000 people and forced millions more from their homes.

In Homs, where evacuations from the last rebel-held district resumed last month, a bomb on a bus killing five people on Wednesday, state media said.

The Observatory said the residents of Zabadani, Madaya, Fuaa, and Kafraya are to quit their home towns over the course of 60 days from next Tuesday. All of the residents of Fuaa and Kafraya are expected to leave, while it was unclear if the evacuations of Madaya and Zabadani would empty the towns completely. Part of the Yarmuk Palestinian camp south of Damascus is also to be evacuated.

The four towns are part of an existing deal reached in 2015 that has seen simultaneous evacuations and aid deliveries, the last of which took place in November.

The new deal, which Syria’s Arab Red Crescent will help implement, also stipulates that Syria’s government release 1,500 prisoners held for political activism since the uprising began in 2011 but gives no time frame.

In Damascus on Wednesday meanwhile, Assad replaced the justice, economy, and development ministers, without giving a reason.

Shelling on dam

The campaign is now focused on the key IS-held town of Tabqa and the adjacent dam on the River Euphrates, where engineers carried out urgent maintenance on Wednesday.

The technicians came under fire from at least six IS shells as they worked to open a spillway to drain water that had built up in the reservoir, AFP’s correspondent there said.

But the engineers were able to complete their work and leave, an SDF official and the Observatory said.

“Water has begun to flow out. The technicians were able to open the door and ease pressure on the dam,” the official said.

The UN has warned of catastrophic flooding downstream if the dam were to burst, but the SDF and the US-led coalition have insisted there is no structural damage.

Technicians inside the complex and the Observatory said the dam’s main electrical control room had been knocked out.

SDF fighters have advanced to within eight kilometres of Raqa city at their closest point.

Government forces meanwhile advanced against IS further west in Aleppo province, taking the village of Deir Hafer and securing 24 kilometres of the Aleppo-Raqa highway, state media said.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017