Trucks carrying women, children leave Daesh Syria holdout

At least 10 trucks carrying men, women and children left the Daesh group’s last holdout in eastern Syria on Wednesday, in a sign a final assault may be approaching. 

The convoy passed a position of the US-backed and PKK/YPG dominated SDF militia after leaving the last Daesh holdout in the village of Baghouz, near the Iraqi border.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU — has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people.

YPG is its Syrian branch.

TRT World's Yasin Eken has more details.

AFP correspondents at the staging point outside Baghouz saw children, including young girls wearing veils, inside the trucks with men and veiled women. 

Thousands of people — mostly women and children related to Daesh militants — have streamed out of Daesh territory in recent weeks, but the flow largely stopped in recent days, with just dozens reported to have left.

TRT World's Francis Collings reports on the plight of civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the SDF militia appeared to have reached a deal with the militants. 

Backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition, the SDF have trapped the militants in a section of Baghouz village that is less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile). 

Daesh had seized swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and declared a cross-border caliphate.