Sit-in of the people of Fu’aa and Kafriya due to the delay of demographic change.

Idlib Province – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:: residents of Saraqeb town set fire to tires and cut the road linking Saraqeb and Abu Al-Duhur in order to protest against what they called failure of the local council in terms of providing services in the area, while the people from the towns of Kafriya and Fu’aa, which are inhabited by Shiite people in the northeastern countryside of Idlib, held a sit-in and raised slogans, calling for “lifting the siege of the two towns”, and denounced the “inaction and silence of the international community and humanitarian organizations to save those who remained inside the two besieged towns”.

The SOHR published that it learned from a number of reliable sources that clashes broke out after midnight between the regime forces allied militiamen on one hand and the Islamic factions on the other at the outskirts and in the vicinity of al-Fu’aa town, which is inhabited by people from the Shiite sect, in the northeastern countryside of Idlib. The death of two of the regime forces allied militiamen was reported. These clashes followed the postponement of the Demographic Change Agreement, which was due to be implemented early last June. The agreement implementation was postponed without any clarifications from any of the parties to the agreement or its sponsors.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published weeks ago that the second phase of the demographic change agreement concerning south of the capital Damascus, Kafriya and al-Fu’aa has been postponed from its date on the 4th of June 2017, reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the agreement was postponed due to logistical reasons the nature of which has not been known yet, now people are waiting the start of preparations for carrying the agreement out but no date was set.

And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also published weeks ago that the agreement about Zabadani and Madaya in the Rif Dimashq, Kafriya and Al-Fu’ah in the northeastern countryside of Idlib and Yarmouk camp south of the capital Damascus states:

“Complete evacuation for Kafriya and Al-Fu’ah in duration of 60 days in two phases in exchange for:

• Evacuating Zabadani and the families of Zabadani and Madaya and in the surrounding areas to the north.
• Cease-fire in the areas around al-Fu’ah and the area of south of the capital (Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem).
• A truce for a period of 9 months in the areas mentioned above.
• Entering non-stop humanitarian aid to the mentioned areas, in addition to aid to al-Wa’er neighborhood in Homs.
• Evacuating 1500 captives from the prisons of the regime of those who were detained due to events related to the revolution (in the second phase of the agreement) without specifying the names (because of the difficulty of negotiating the file with the regime).
• Providing mutual lists by both parties for the numbers and names of the prisoners to work on the exchange.
• Evacuating Yarmouk camp (fighters to al-Nusra in the area).

Also there is an item that is not related to the Syrian matter related to releasing the Qatari and Arab kidnapped in Iraq.”