Baladi News
Hundreds more people of many nationalities streamed out of Islamic State’s last enclave in Syria under escort from U.S.-backed forces on Wednesday, part of an exodus of both its supporters and victims from its final shred of land, Reuters news agency reported.
Part of Baghouz, a tiny cluster of hamlets and farmland on the banks of the Euphrates at the Iraqi border, is all that remains to Islamic State of the “caliphate” straddling the two countries which its leader proclaimed in 2014.
Women from Iraq, Syria, Russia, Azerbaijan and Poland, an Indonesian boy and enslaved, traumatized Yazidi girls were among those to emerge over the past 48 hours from the caravans of trucks that trundled to an assembly point outside the enclave, Reuters report said.
Around 40,000 people have come out over three months, including 15,000 since the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a final assault to capture it on Feb. 9, said SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali, according to Reuters.
The number surpassed initial estimates and has delayed SDF plans to storm the enclave or force the remaining hardened foreign fighters holed up inside to surrender.
Source: Reuters.