A new displacement process has begun from Daraa in southern Syria to the rural areas of Aleppo in the north of the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that buses arrived in Daraa to "transport fighters refusing the settlement in Daraa al-Balad to northern Syria, after an agreement between the negotiation committee and the security committee to evacuate the second batch, which consists of 53 individuals, 3 of whom were accompanied by their families."
The regime forces had shelled the neighborhoods of Daraa al-Balad with artillery and rockets to pressure the negotiation committee and the wanted individuals to evacuate the second batch of individuals to northern Syria. The security committee affiliated with the regime insists on the displacement of around 100 wanted individuals, mainly two suspected of being linked to ISIS, as well as the surrender of weapons, the establishment of military checkpoints in besieged neighborhoods, and conducting a search campaign for weapons and wanted individuals before lifting the siege on the city.
On Wednesday, eight displaced young men from the neighborhoods of Daraa al-Balad arrived in the city of al-Bab in northern Syria. Talal al-Shami, a 26-year-old among the displaced, told Asharq Al-Awsat that he, along with seven young men—four from Daraa province, two from Damascus, and two from Homs in central Syria—had defected from the regime forces in 2012, shortly after the events in Syria began. They arrived in al-Bab, controlled by the Syrian National Army north of Aleppo, in a bus accompanied by two vehicles from the Russian military police, following an agreement made between the negotiation committees in Daraa al-Balad and the regime with the mediation of the “Eighth Brigade” linked to the Russian forces in the country.
