News / Syria

Syria resumes evacuation after terrorists kill 126

Sunday, 16 April 2017 10:11 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 17 April 2017 3:17 AM ]

This frame grab from video provided by the Thiqa News Agency, shows militants at the site of a blast that damaged several buses and vans at the Rashideen area outside Aleppo city, April. 15, 2017. (Via AP)

The Syrian army has resumed the evacuation of residents from militant-besieged areas outside Aleppo after buses carrying them were hit by terrorists on Saturday, killing at least 126 people.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that 109 of the dead were evacuees from the militant-besieged Shia-majority towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib Province and the remainder were aid workers and militants tasked with guarding the buses.

The monitor group added that at least 68 children were among victims of the bomb attack.

The death toll may rise further as "hundreds" more were injured in the blast, it added.

On Saturday, a bomber targeted the buses as they waited in the militant-held al-Rashideen district on the outskirts of Aleppo to cross into government-controlled territory.

Still image shows bodies lying near burnt out buses after a bomb attack outside Aleppo, Syria, April 15, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

The evacuation was made possible under a deal struck between Damascus and militant groups in late March that envisaged the transfer of 16,000 people from Foua and Kefraya in exchange for the evacuation of militants and their families from the government-besieged towns of al-Zabadani and Madaya in Rif Dimashq Province.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday’s deadly attack, but such assaults bear the hallmarks of those carried out by the Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

Iran condemned the bombing as a “shameful criminal act by Takfiri terrorists” and offered condolences to the Syrian government and nation.

Read more:

Iran slams deadly bus attack in Syria

The Syrian army troops and allied fighters have been fighting against different foreign-backed terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the Arab country since 2011.

Over the past few months, the Takfiri elements have increased their acts of violence in Syria in revenge for the blows they have been suffering on the ground.

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