About 2700 Syrian rebels started leaving the last opposition-held district of Homs city Saturday in the final phase of an evacuation deal that will see Bashar Assad's regime take back the area in the seventh year of the country's war.
On Sunday, about 60 buses loaded with 1262 rebel fighters with their families have headed to the border town of Jarblus, northeastern Aleppo city and 1460 more have headed to Idlib province, Ammar Johmani reporter said.
The evacuation of al-Waer is one of the largest of its kind. It follows a number of similar deals in recent months that have brought many parts of western Syria long held by the opposition and besieged by government and allied forces back under Assad's control
About 100 Russian troops have replaced rebels in their bastions at the engagement points with regime forces due to the evacuation deal that reached in April, the local reporter said.
17400 people have left the central city of Homs to the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo as well to the northern countryside of Homs since April, according to Ammar Johmani report.
Abdulbaset Fahad, Waer-based activist said the evacuation deal is a harsh demographic change the embattled neighborhood will suffer for decades from its catastrophic affects.
Over the past year, the regime has accelerated its drive to push rebel-held pockets to surrender under evacuation deals similar to the one in force in Homs.
The agreement underlines al-Assad's upper hand in the war, which was an early center of the popular uprising against Assad, as more rebel fighters opt to leave areas they have defended for years in deals that amount to negotiated withdrawals to other parts of the country
