Last fighters begin to leave former Syrian rebel stronghold of Homs

Rebel fighters and their families board a bus during a government-led evacuation from Waer district of Homs city in Syria on March 18, 2017. Youssef Badawi / EPA

HOMS, SYRIA // Hundreds of fighters along with about 1,000 civilians left the last rebel-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 that has been under siege by the army for years, is the latest in a series of “reconciliation” deals struck by the government in opposition-controlled areas.

It comes ahead of another round of UN-brokered talks that open in Geneva on Thursday in an attempt to end a conflict that has resulted in the deaths of more than 320,000 people and driven millions from their homes.

Homs city was once a major centre of the uprising against Syrian president Bashar Al Assad that broke out in 2011

Thousands are expected to leave Waer in the coming weeks in the final phase of the agreement, which had stalled in recent months.

Women and children lined up to load their luggage on to buses on Saturday, while men appeared to go through extra screening in separate lines.

Russian forces looked on, wearing green fatigues with black bulletproof 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,” said Talal Barazi, the governor of Homs province.

Mr Barazi said 1,479 people, including 423 rebels, left Waer on Saturday.

“Not a single weapon or fighter will be left in Waer,” he said, adding that about 40,000 residents were expected to stay.

Three waves of rebels and their families left Waer under an agreement reached in December 2015, but subsequent evacuations stalled.

Under a new agreement last week between government and rebel representatives, evacuees will be taken to opposition-held parts of Homs province, the rebel-held town of Jarabulus on the Syrian-Turkish border or the rebel-held north-western province of Idlib.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that about 12,000 people, 2,500 of them rebels, will leave under the deal.

Over the past month, government forces have stepped up their bombardment of the district, killing dozens of people, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

No aid has reached Waer in at least four months. Last month, a UN convoy was seized by gunmen who diverted the assistance to a government-held area.

The government has reached reconciliation deals for several rebel-held areas, and claims such agreements that grant safe passage to surrendering fighters are key to ending six years of war.

But rebels said they are forced into such deals by siege and bombardment, and the UN has criticised them.

The most notorious of the agreements was the December evacuation of the rebel-held east of Aleppo after months of siege and bombardment that killed hundreds of residents.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria earlier this month said the Aleppo deal “amounts to the war crime of forced displacement of the civilian population” because it had left civilians with “no option to remain”.

The presence of up to 100 Russian troops to oversee the final phase of evacuations from Waer is part of the deal reached last week.

“Russia is a guarantor of the Waer agreement’s implementation and will monitor its execution,” said a 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 government, and in September 2015 launched an air campaign in support of president Al Assad’s forces.

That backing has helped government forces recapture swaths of territory, including eastern Aleppo and the historical desert city of Palmyra.

* Agence France-Presse