BEIRUT: Several hundred Syrian rescuers remain trapped in the country’s south with no escape from approaching regime troops, two of them said on Monday after a secret evacuation saved many of their colleagues.
Israel on Sunday helped around 400 opposition-linked White Helmet rescue workers and their families flee a neighbouring pocket of southwestern Syria as government forces bore down on them.
They were then taken to Jordan and will be resettled to western nations including France, Britain, Germany, and Canada. But a similar number remain trapped in southern Syria. "We’re calling on concerned parties to help us leave," said Cesar, a 23-year-old White Helmets worker in the southern city of Daraa.
He estimated some 400 fellow rescuers were still in the provinces of Daraa, bordering Jordan, and Quneitra, next to the buffer zone abutting the Israeli-annexed Golan. Cesar said he had learned of the operation a few days ago "by chance", but when he contacted White Helmets leadership, they told him it was too late to register to leave.
"They set another meeting for today on the subject, but we found out a little while ago that the efforts failed. The fact that some White Helmets members left and some stayed hurt us more than it helped us," he told AFP on Monday.
"Yesterday’s evacuation through Israel only made things worse. We’re afraid of the regime and Russia’s reactions." Russian-backed Syrian forces have been battering the south for more than a month in a bid to bring it back under government control.
The military push has damaged hospitals and civil defence centres, pushing hundreds of thousands to flee towards the Jordanian and Israeli borders, which remained sealed. The foreign ministry in Damascus slammed the evacuation on Monday, calling it a "criminal operation" and repeating its accusation that the White Helmets were a front for "terrorists".
