The Rukban camp, sandwiched between Jordan, Syria borders and Iraq, Feb. 14, 2017. Raad Adayleh | AP
Work to resettle refugees from the Rukban camp in southeastern Syria will begin late on September, the representative of the joint Russia-Syria Coordination Center on Refugee Repatriation announced on September 18.
During a meeting of the Russian and Syrian interdepartmental centers on refugee resettlement, Col. Leonid Antonik said that the Reconciliation Center in Syria and the Refugee Migration Monitoring has received an updated plan on the evacuation of all refugees from the Rukban camp from the U.N. Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Syria Corinne Fleischer.
“The plan’s implementation is scheduled to begin on September 27,” the TASS news agency quoted the Russian commander as saying.
The al-Rukban camp is located within the U.S.-occupied 55km zone around the al-Tanaf base. In the last two years, the camp witnessed several humanitarian disasters due to the lack of aid.
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Head of the reconciliation center, Maj. Gen. Andrei Bakin told reporters that the Russian Military Police will oversee the evacuation of refugees from the camp.
“Thirty five Russian military police and twelve pieces of military and specialized equipment have been commissioned to arrange for the centralized evacuation of refugees from al-Rukban through the JIeb checkpoint,” Bakin said
The time line for the evacuation process and the refugees’ final destination have not been disclosed by any side, so far.
If successful, the evacuation plan will put an end to the suffering of tens of thousands of civilians who have been trapped inside the camp for years now.
