300 Syrians leave besieged suburb of Damascus after deal

MOADAMIYEH, Syria (AP) — More than 300 Syrians were bused out of a rebel-held suburb of the capital, Damascus, in an evacuation Friday under a deal struck with the government that ends a punishing 3-year-long siege, allows rebel fighters to leave and restores state control over the area.

The suburb of Moadamiyeh is the latest opposition pocket to relent after residents could no longer take the suffering under sieges by Syria’s military, with food supplies dwindling and key infrastructure like hospitals being destroyed. A nearby suburb, Daraya, surrendered and came under government control last week.

The accelerating pace of such surrenders points to the success of the military’s tactic of sieges, even as it has brought international criticism and complaints from the U.N. over the difficulty of getting humanitarian aid to besieged residents.

An Associated Press reporter in Moadamiyeh saw security forces searching the luggage of dozens of men, women, and children before they boarded buses Friday, heading out of the suburb to shelters in a government-controlled neighborhood nearby.

Moadamiyeh, which a U.N. report said was gassed with toxic sarin in 2013, has suffered a three-year government siege, leaving its estimated 28,000 residents with dwindling food and medical supplies.

The first part of the deal’s implementation evacuated about 340 people, including 62 gunmen who agreed to lay down their arms after taking advantage of a presidential amnesty, said the governor of Rural Damascus province, Alaa Munir Ibrahim.

Aside from the gunmen, the evacuees are all residents of the nearby suburb of Daraya who had been trapped in Moadamiyeh when the military launched a major offensive on Daraya earlier this year.