Nearly 1,500 people, mostly civilians, left the last opposition-held district of Homs on Saturday under a controversial Russian-supervised deal to bring Syria's third city under full government control. The evacuation of Waer, a north-western district of the city that has been under siege by the army for years, is the latest in a series of "reconciliation" deals struck by the government that the rebels say amount to starving them out.
It comes ahead of a new round of UN-brokered talks that open in Geneva on Thursday in an attempt to end the conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people and driven millions from their homes. Thousands are expected to leave Waer in the coming weeks in the final phase of the evacuation agreement, which had stalled in recent months. An AFP correspondent saw a first wave of three green buses carrying civilians including children as well as dozens of fighters, their rifles slung over their shoulders.
Throughout the day, women and children munching on pieces of bread lined up to load their luggage onto the buses, while men appeared to go through extra screening in separate lines. Stern-looking Russian forces looked on, wearing green fatigues with black bullet-proof vests emblazoned with the word "Police" on the front. "Syrian police, Russian military police and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent will protect the convoys and accompany them from Homs onto Aleppo province," Homs governor Talal Barazi told AFP.
Barazi said evacuations were over for Saturday and that a total of 1,479 people - including 423 rebels - had left. "Not a single weapon or fighter will be left in Waer," he said, adding that about 40,000 residents were expected to stay in the district. Three waves of rebels and their families had already left Waer under an agreement first reached in December 2015, but subsequent evacuations stalled.
In a new deal reached last week, government and rebel representatives agreed that up to 100 Russian troops would deploy inside Waer to oversee the final phase of evacuations. "Russia is a guarantor of the Waer agreement's implementation and will monitor its execution," said the Russian colonel overseeing the operation. "Russian forces came to Syria for this - to help their friends and allow people to live safely in this country again."
Moscow is a decades-old ally of the Damascus regime, and in September 2015 launched an air campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad's forces. That backing has helped government forces recapture swathes of territory, including the whole of second city Aleppo as well as the famed desert city of Palmyra. Under the agreement, evacuees will be bussed to opposition-held parts of Homs province, the rebel-held town of Jarabulus on the Syrian-Turkish border or the north-western province of Idlib.