Buses En Route To Evacuate Sick And Injured Syrians Were Attacked And Burned

The buses were traveling to the besieged towns of Fuaa and Kefraya, where thousands of people are trapped.

Ammar Abdullah / Reuters

Armed groups attacked buses en route to remove sick and wounded people from two government-held Syrian towns on Sunday, observers and state media reported.

The the buses were attacked and burned while traveling to the villages of Fuaa and Kefraya in Idlib province, the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported.

Pro-government groups had been demanding people be allow to leave the villages in return for the evacuation of civilians from eastern Aleppo.

State media reported "armed terrorists" — a term the Syrian government routinely uses to refer to rebel fighters — attacked five buses, according to Reuters.

Ammar Abdullah / Reuters

The exchange of civilians in the two towns, which are in still-contested territory, was one of the conditions the Syrian government and its ally Iran insisted upon when negotiating the most recent ceasefire.

On Thursday, as part of the negotiations, Iran demanded the two Shiite villages be fully evacuated, all Shiite prisoners held by armed opposition groups be released, and the bodies of Shiite militias killed in unspecified battles be handed over.

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