Death toll in bomb attack on Syria evacuees rises to 112

Beirut: The death toll in a suicide car bomb attack on buses carrying Syrians evacuated from two besieged government-held towns has risen to at least 112, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 98 evacuees from the northern towns of Foa’a and Kafraya were killed when an explosives-laden vehicle hit their buses at a transit point west of Aleppo on Saturday.

It said the remainder of the dead were aid workers and rebels tasked with guarding the buses.

It warned the death toll may rise further as “hundreds” more were wounded in the blast.

Dozens of buses carrying thousands of refugees had been stuck by the roadside in the rebel-held town of Rashidin after leaving Foa’a and Kafraya on Friday under a deal reached between the government and opposition groups.

Foa’a and Kafraya have been under rebel siege for more than two years. As part of the deal, several hundred people including armed rebels will be transported out of Madaya and Zabadani, towns near Damascus, which are surrounded by pro-government forces.

Thousands of evacuees had been stuck on the road because of a disagreement over the number of rebels allowed to leave two other towns included in the deal.

The evacuation process resumed following the blast, the Observatory said.

AFP’s reporter at the scene saw several bodies, body parts and blood scattered on the ground.

The wounded including several children received treatment at a hospital in the government-held part of Aleppo.

The bombing took place as thousands of evacuees from Foa’a and Kafraya waited to continue their journey to regime-controlled Aleppo, the coastal province of Latakia, or Damascus.

The rebel group Ahrar Al Sham condemned the bombing.

“We reject any accusations levelled at opposition for this heinous crime,” a senior official tweeted. “Our role was to secure civilians not kill them.”

More than 5,000 people who had lived under crippling siege for more than two years left the two towns, along with 2,200 evacuated from rebel-held Madaya and Zabadani, on Friday.

Syria’s war has left more than 320,000 people dead since erupting in 2011, with more than half the population forced from their homes and hundreds of thousands trapped under siege.