A Russian air base in Khmeimim, Syria, has evacuated around 9,000 people seeking evacuation from a wave of sectarian violence, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakhalova said Thursday.
Hmeimimm is one of two Syrian military bases that Russia wants to keep despite the collapse of former President Bashar al-Assad, an Islamist rebel ally in December.
“They were seeking evacuation and simply understood that it was a matter of life and death,” Zakharova told reporters, Reuters reported.
She added that most of the civilians who took shelter there were women and children.
Syrian sectarian violence is fighting the security forces of a new Islamic-led government against fighter jets from Assad’s Alawi minority. Hundreds of Alawite civilians have been killed after saying that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was retaliation after an attack on security forces.
The collapse of Assad, which Moscow has supported for many years in the Syrian civil war, has hit a major blow to its profits for the Middle East.
Russia is trying to develop relationships with new Syrian leaders under interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the future of Hmeimimm base and the Tarts Navy Facility remains unknown.
Zakharova said Russia was doing everything to ensure the security of Syrian citizens and facilities and had actively contacted the Arab countries, Turkey and Iran to ensure the country’s long-term stabilization.
Russia was shocked by the violence and hoped that the perpetrators would be punished, she said.