Rebel fighters and civilians have begun preparing to leave the besieged town of Douma near the Syrian capital of Damascus after a chemical weapons attack over the weekend killed dozens and drew worldwide condemnation.

Buses expected to transport local rebels and residents to their forced exile in northern Syria began arriving in the early hours of Monday, after negotiators announced a deal had been reached in the immediate aftermath of the suspected toxic gas attack, which killed at least 42 people.



“I am leaving tomorrow, God willing, because our mission has ended,” said a paramedic who treated the chemical attack victims. “I am saying thank God that the mass killings are over, but I am saddened that I will leave my land and my people, possibly never to return. But I will leave knowing that I gave everything I could until the end.



“I will take the memories of my home that was bombed and some photographs. All I will carry is two suitcases, but in my mind and my memory is so much of what we lived through.”

On Monday, Russian military police reportedly entered the besieged city and visited the site of the alleged chemical attack. Local activists published a video showing an armoured Russian personnel carrier arriving at the building where the projectile laced with chemicals landed, and were shown being directed by locals and entering the building.



The Russian vehicle was shown driving away from the scene as civilian onlookers watched from the street. It was unclear whether the Russian personnel at the site took any samples from the scene and what the purpose of the visit was.

Douma is home to more than 100,000 civilians, according to UN estimates. It is the largest town in eastern Ghouta, a region that was once the breadbasket ofthe Damascus region but has been besieged for years by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Tens of thousands of people have already fled other parts of Ghouta after a two-month bombardment that has killed nearly 2,000, and other rebel groups have agreed to surrender deals that allow their exile to northern Syria.

A similar deal for Douma had foundered in recent days over the insistence of the local rebel group, Jaish al-Islam, that it wanted to stay in the city.

But after the alleged chemical attack, which followed an intense bombardment that began on Friday and appeared aimed at forcing a deal, negotiators said they had reached an agreement that would allow the exile of fighters and those who wish to leave from among the civilians.

Under the terms of the deal, those who choose to stay behind are supposed to be protected by Russia from prosecution and will reconcile with the Assad regime, and will not be called upon to do mandatory military service for six months. Russian military police are supposed to deploy in Douma to act as a guarantor of the agreement.

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Civilians and fighters are expected to be transported to Jarablus, a town near the Turkish border that is controlled by Ankara-backed rebel fighters who reclaimed it from Islamic State last year. Similar forced displacement deals have taken place all over Syria.

Syrian state media said the deal also required that Jaish al-Islam hand over kidnapped individuals and prisoners of war in exchange for safe passage. Families of those in the rebel group’s prisons had gathered near the road into eastern Ghouta to await their release, after an earlier exchange that saw dozens of prisoners handed over to the Syrian government.

Though more than two dozen buses had gathered near Douma to begin the evacuation, it was unclear on Monday afternoon whether any had left the besieged city yet. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said buses that had been filled with those leaving the city were waiting for others to be packed before departing for northern Syria.

Civilians reached by the Guardian said they were happy their suffering, which extended over several years of siege, punishing air raids and chemical attacks including a sarin gas attack in 2013, was finally at an end. But they said they were saddened to leave their homes behind for an uncertain future of displacement, arguing that they could not trust a regime that had deployed so many weapons against them.

“I am now spending my last farewell moments with my city, Douma, and I am leaving it hoping to return one day,” said an activist who planned to leave on Tuesday aboard the buses. “The bombing and destruction that we lived through for seven years has been concluded. All the masks have fallen.

“I have no choice, and my heart is aching with sadness at leaving my city, my small home, my street and its kind people.”

