Syria govt forces detain 300 Kurds, evacuate 400 fighters from Aleppo

ALEPPO, Syria: Syrian government forces evacuated more than 400 Kurdish fighters from the last district in Aleppo to fall to the army and detained 300 Kurds, an interior ministry official told AFP on Sunday.

Kurdish forces said the combatants were evacuated “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo”.

The two sides clashed in Aleppo city earlier this week, after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.

The ministry official, who requested anonymity, said that 419 fighters, including 59 wounded and an unspecified number of “killed” were transferred from the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood to the Kurds’ de facto autonomous zone in the northeast.

An AFP correspondent saw buses filled with men leaving Sheikh Maqsud under escort by government forces during the night.

The official added that 300 other Kurds, including fighters, have been arrested.

On Saturday, an AFP correspondent saw dozens of young men in civilian clothing seated on the ground and guarded by security forces, before they were transported to an unknown location.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor told AFP that 300 “young Kurds” had been arrested, stating that they were “civilians, not fighters”.

In the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in the northeast, hundreds of people gathered for the arrival of the wounded, according to AFP correspondents on the ground.