A picture taken on December 4, 2017 shows Syrian baby Karim Abdallah who lost his left eye and his his mother in government shelling on the nearby town of Hammouria, being held by his brother in the rebel-held town of Beit Sawa, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus. / AFP PHOTO / #SolidarityWithKarim campaign / Handout / === RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE – MANDATORY CREDIT “AFP PHOTO
The Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent have evacuated the third and last group of critically sick people from a besieged rebel stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus.
Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based watchdog, said on Friday that the evacuation was under a deal with the government.
He said that the last group of 12 patients was evacuated from the region of Eastern Ghouta shortly after midnight.
“The 12 were transferred to hospitals inside Damascus, after 17 others have been evacuated from Eastern Ghouta since Wednesday,’’ Abel-Rahman added.
Under a deal with Damascus, rebels from Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) who control the region released 26 prisoners and handed them over to the government.
The handover was in exchange for evacuation of the critically ill people from Eastern Ghouta.
A total of 400,000 people in the region have been largely cut off from humanitarian aid since 2013.
Earlier this month, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said children in Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus were suffering one of the worst health crises of Syria’s civil war.
Eastern Ghouta has been under siege by government forces for the past four years.
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