UN peacekeepers freed, make safe journey to Jordan

Filipino peacekeepers of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) cross the Quneitra checkpoint between Israel and Syria in Golan Heights yesterday.AFP/AmmanTwenty-one Filipino UN peacekeepers seized by Syrian rebels on the Golan Heights arrived in Jordan yesterday, hours after their captors released them from an ordeal of more than three days. “They arrived in Jordan; they are on Jordanian land now,” Jordanian government spokesman Samih Maaytah told AFP. The United Nations and the Philippines government also confirmed that the 21 members of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), had crossed safely into Jordan from Syria. They were in captivity since Wednesday. “We can confirm that the peacekeepers have been released,” UN peacekeeping spokeswoman Josephine Guerrero said in New York. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the release but said all sides in the Syrian conflict must respect the “impartiality” of UNDOF which monitors a ceasefire line between Syria and Israel in the strategic Golan plateau. Ban “appreciates the efforts of all concerned to secure their safe release,” said a statement released by his press office after the Filipinos crossed from Syria into Jordan. “The secretary-general emphasises to all parties the impartiality of United Nations peacekeepers,” it added. Authorities in Manila expressed relief. “Our 21 peacekeepers are now in the custody of the Jordanian border patrol headquarters. We were able to verify this through a telephone call placed by one of the men to their battalion commander,” Philippine military spokesman Colonel Arnulfo Burgos said. He said no decision was taken about where the peacekeepers will go next but that Manila’s envoy to Amman, Olivia V Palala, “will be directly co-ordinating with the Jordanian authorities for their turnover to us.” “The Filipino UN peacekeeping contingent’s (to the Golan Heights) commander, Colonel Cirilito Sobejana, is now on his way to Jordan to meet his men,” he added. Ambassador Palala told AFP the peacekeepers were heading from the borders to the Royal Armed Forces headquarters in eastern Amman, and are unharmed. “We contacted them and they are all ok, safe and sound,” she said. Palala, who earlier expected to meet them at the border, said she was now waiting for the peacekeepers at the headquarters of Jordan’s armed forces. “They are on their way now to Amman, they will be coming by 7:30pm (17:30 GMT),” she said, adding that future plans for them will be made in co-ordination with the United Nations. The peacekeepers were abducted by rebels from the Yarmuk Martyrs Brigade just a mile to the Syrian side of the armistice line with Israel in the village of Jamla. The rebels demanded that Syrian troops move 20km back from Jamla and that the International Committee of the Red Cross “guarantees the safe exit from the strife-torn area of Jamla of civilians,” said the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman. On Friday, a UN attempt to pick up the peacekeepers was aborted when Syrian troops shelled the area. The abduction — the first of its kind since the conflict erupted in Syria nearly two years ago —  was condemned by world powers and triggered a flurry of diplomatic action to secure the peacekeepers’ release. It also sparked fears that more governments would withdraw their contingents from the already depleted UN mission. Israeli officials warned that any further reduction in UNDOF strength risked creating a security vacuum in the no-man’s land between the two sides on the strategic Golan plateau, which it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War. Meanwhile, Syrian troops bombarded yesterday several rebel-held areas near Damascus, where 10 people, including three children, were killed in clashes between troops and rebels, the Observatory said. In the northwest, near the Turkish border, several areas were the target of regime bombings that also left three children from one family dead in the village of Deir Sita.