London: A senior UN official says he fears children waiting to be evacuated from the besieged rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near the Syrian capital, Damascus, are being used as bargaining chips, reports BBC. The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, told the BBC he believed that rebels had agreed to free government workers in exchange for the children. Another 12 patients were evacuated on Wednesday, following four on Tuesday. Thirteen more urgent cases are expected to be evacuated on Thursday. News of the latest evacuations from the Eastern Ghouta came in a tweet from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a medical relief organisation that supports hospitals in rebel-held Syria. However, SAMS advocacy manager Mohamad Katoub told the BBC that it was hard to keep up with who needed to be evacuated as people continued to die.