Hundreds protest in Syria against opening trade corridors with regime-held territory

Hundreds of people in Syria’s rebel-held northern province of Idlib protested on Friday against the opening of trade corridors with regime-held territory.

Over 300 protesters took to the streets of the town of Atmeh in the north of Idlib province after Friday prayers, with similar protests taking place in the eastern Harbnoush area of the province, local activists told The New Arab’s Arabic language service Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The protesters in Atmeh were all people displaced from other parts of Syria.

This comes after people in the area learned about the reported intention of hardline Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – who control most of Idlib province – to open a trade corridor near the town of Sarmin in eastern Idlib province, with the regime-controlled city of Saraqib.

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“The intention of HTS to open a commercial crossing between the areas it controls from areas under Syrian regime control sites in Saraqib has caused a lot of controversy in Idlib," activist Ahmed Al-Khatib told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Al-Khatib said the news has particularly outraged displaced civilians from areas of the province that have been captured by the regime.

The protest was organised by individuals affiliated with the Islamist Hizb al-Tahrir faction, which opposes HTS, and hundreds of civilians joined in with the demonstration as soon as it began, according to the activists.

HTS began to clear routes between Sarmin and Saraqib on 26 September, over two years after the road connecting them was completely shut, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

In 2017 the hardline Islamist group established an unrecognised ‘Syrian Salvation Government’, through which it was able to control public institutions, such as education centres and bakeries, across the province. 

Idlib province and adjoining areas of Aleppo province are the last areas of Syria to be held by anti-Assad rebels. Over three million people live there, half of whom have been displaced from other parts of the country by the Assad regime