Displaced Syrians returning home after Dara’a deal

In a statement issued on Friday, July 6, the joint opposition operations room for southern Syria said rebels agreed to a deal that includes their “gradual” surrender of heavy and medium weapons.

The military said the shell was spillover fire from fighting between the Syrian government and rebel forces.

Osama al-Homsi, 26, told AFP he was hesitant to return to his hometown of Jeeza in southeastern Daraa after the deal.

Rebels who refused to come back under Assad’s rule would leave for the insurgent stronghold in north-west, they said. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall.

Calm reigned over the region on Saturday as the two sides finalised the ceasefire deal, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

Rebel forces negotiated surrender as the Syria’s flag was raised above the Nasib crossing, Syria’s state-run news agency said.

In addition to ending the Syrian military offensive the deal also calls for the gradual withdrawal of Syrian Army forces from the towns they’ve taken, to be replaced by local forces who are overseen by Russian Federation.

A field commander told Reuters the army had cut off rebel supply routes by seizing two towns that overlook the highway leading to the Jordanian border.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have retaken control of the Nasib border crossing to Jordan, a valuable trade artery, SANA reported Friday.

Other sources at the border confirmed that, saying the remaining number of the displaced on the border does not exceed 8,000.

But Jordan, a staunch ally of the United States, wants first to make sure that Assad’s Russian allies play a central role in stabilising southern Syria, fearing that any upheaval there will affect its own security, officials in Jordan said.

The bombing on rebel areas throughout Thursday sent people fleeing into olive groves and arid fields in search of safety.

“In the largest wave of displacement to hit southern Syria since the start of the seven-year-long war, an estimated 180,000 children have been forced to flee their homes with little resource for protection, shelter or assistance”, UNICEF said.

The rebels in southern Syria once received significant backing and support from the US that has receded and all but dried up over the past few years.

The issue of detainees and kidnapped persons will not be resolved in the deal, Russia has said, but will be part of the Astana Process co-sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey and aimed at voiding the UN-sponsored Geneva Process considered to be the cornerstone for solving the Syrian crisis.

The recapture of Naseeb in Daraa marks the return of Assad’s forces to the province where the uprising against him began seven years ago, following successive military victories across most of the country with the help of powerful allies Russian Federation and Iran.