Russia and Syria offered the United States to take part in an operation to remove refugees from the Rukban camp, located near the settlement of Al-Tanf in the province of Homs in the east of the Arab Republic. This is stated in the joint statement of interdepartmental coordinating headquarters of countries, which is widespread today, on March 20.
“We offer the American side to take part in organizing a cover for the humanitarian operation to evacuate the suffering Syrian citizens from the air by the joint efforts of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the command of the US Armed Forces in the Al-Tanf zone,” the statement says.
At the same time, it is emphasized that the US military is not able to influence the Islamist militants who “rage in the occupied zone” in the Al-Tanf region.
The Syrian government has previously expressed its willingness, together with the Russian military police, to protect six car convoys with refugees. Russia and Syria also offered to the United States to support the initiative, appointing representatives who will participate in accompanying these columns, as well as to influence the militants operating in the Rukban camp.
In early March, the US military in eastern Syria refused to let six convoys to transport IDPs from the Rukban camp. For a long time, Moscow and Damascus have called Washington the only one guilty of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Al-Tanf region, where there are about 50,000 refugees, who, as indicated by the Russian Defense Ministry, are guarded by the United States militants of the Magavir al-Saura group as hostages.