?Families of kidnapped people wait for their relatives to be released at the Wafideen crossing, northeast of Damascus, Syria, on April 4, 2018. Five kidnapped people were released Wednesday from captivity of the Islam Army militants in Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside, state news agency SANA reported. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)
DAMASCUS, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Five kidnapped people were released Wednesday from captivity of the Islam Army militants Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside, state news agency SANA reported.
The released civilians had been kidnapped from the Adra area in the countryside of Damascus, said SANA, adding that the Islam Army will release the kidnapped people in its custody from the Douma district in Eastern Ghouta in batches.
The release of kidnapped people by the rebels was in light of the agreement reached between the Islam Army and the Syrian government forces that demands the rebels to release the people they kidnapped as a prelude for the evacuation of the militants out of Douma, according to SANA.
Two batches of the Islam Army militants and their families have already evacuated Douma as the third is preparing to leave on Wednesday.
The evacuation of the rebels and their families from Douma comes as a deal was reached on Sunday between the Islam Army militants and the Syrian army under the mediation of Russia.
Douma is the last rebel-held area in Eastern Ghouta, after other towns in that sprawling countryside have seen the evacuation of all the rebels and their families toward Idlib province in northwestern Syria.
The Syrian army launched a massive operation last late in February on the rebels in Eastern Ghouta and secured the evacuation of 150,000 civilians who were hosted in government-run shelters until the situation settles in their areas in Eastern Ghouta for their return.
Eastern Ghouta, a 105-square-km agricultural region consisting of several towns and farmlands, poses the last threat to the capital due to its proximity to government-controlled neighborhoods east of Damascus and ongoing mortar attacks that target residential areas in the capital, pushing people over the edge.
