Syria war: Huge bomb kills dozens of evacuees in Syria

A huge car bomb has blasted a convoy of coaches carrying
evacuees from besieged government-held towns in Syria, killing at
least 45 people.

It shattered coaches and set cars on fire, leaving a trail of bodies
including children, as the convoy waited in rebel territory near
Aleppo.

There were fears of revenge attacks on evacuees from rebel-held
towns, being moved under a deal.

But the exchange later resumed, with coaches reaching safety on
both sides.

The "Four Towns" deal brokered by Iran and Qatar was meant to
relieve suffering in besieged towns - Foah and Kefraya in the
north-west which are under government control, and rebel-held
Madaya and Zabadani, near Damascus.

Some 20,000 besieged people would be taken out in all.

According to AFP news agency, up to 5,000 government
evacuees and 2,200 from rebel towns had been stranded in
transit on Sunday.

Last month, the UN described the situation in the besieged towns
as "catastrophic". More than 64,000 civilians are "trapped in a
cycle of daily violence and deprivation", it said.

The bomb reportedly went off at Rashidin, west of government-
held Aleppo, at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) at the
checkpoint where the handover was due to take place.

A suicide bomber driving a van supposedly carrying aid supplies
blew it up near the coaches, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights reports.

"A van was distributing crisps," one civilian evacuee told
@ZamanEnglish News. "Children started running after it. It then
exploded."

At least 45 body bags were counted at the scene of the blast,
while White Helmets rescuers, who operate in rebel-held areas,
said at least 100 people had been killed. Many were also injured.
Images from the scene show bodies lying on the ground outside
blackened and devastated vehicles.

Most of the dead were evacuees but they also included several
rebels who had been guarding the buses, the Observatory says.

Convoys on both sides had been held up overnight, but by
Saturday evening 15 coaches from the government towns had
arrived at their destination in Ramouseh while between 25 and 30
carrying evacuees from the rebel towns had reached Rashidin.

Rebels had accused the government of breaching the terms of
the deal, accusing it of trying to bring out more loyalist fighters
than agreed, along with civilians.

According to a 24Aleppo tweet, a special unit of the Russian
army surrounded the convoy from the rebel-held towns after the
bombing and closed the road there to "prevent any reaction".

Evacuees from Madaya heard the blast from a bus garage where
they had been waiting in Ramouseh, just a few miles away,
Reuters news agency reports.

They called on international organisations to protect them from
any possible retaliation, saying they condemned the attack on the
other convoy.

Madaya resident Ahmed, 24, told Reuters earlier that evacuees
had been waiting without drinking water or food at a since Friday
night.

The Madaya and Zabadani evacuees are going to rebel-held
territory in Idlib province.

Why are the evacuations needed?

Many people are reported to have died as a result of shortages
of food or medicine in the four towns.

Foah and Kefraya, most of whose residents are Shia Muslims,
have been encircled by rebels and al Qaeda-linked Sunni Muslim
jihadists since March 2015.

Madaya and Zabadani, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim,
have been besieged since June 2015 by the Syrian army and
fighters from Lebanon's Shia Muslim Hezbollah movement.

A previous attempt at mutual evacuations failed in December
when rebels burnt coaches due to be sent to the towns.

More than 300,000 people have lost their lives and millions of
people have been displaced since a peaceful uprising against
President Bashar al-Assad six years ago turned into a full-scale.

More than 80 people were killed in a suspected chemical attack
on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, in the north-west, on 4
April, prompting the US to bomb a government air base with
missiles.

Russia and Iran also have military forces deployed in the country,
backing President Assad.

Rescue workers from both the government and rebel sides
worked at the scene of Saturday's attack.

"Today, rebels and regime, Sunnis and Shias shed blood, sweat
and tears together to save #Syria children,"Maybe not all is lost, yet."