Rebels leave Homs dist after deal

Hundreds of rebels and civilians left the last opposition-held district of Homs yesterday under a controversial Russian-supervised deal to bring Syria's third city under full government control.

The evacuation of Waer, a northwestern 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 s dozens of fighters, their rifles slung over their shoulders.

Three waves of rebels and their families have already left Waer under an agreement first reached in December 2015, but evacuations have since 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.

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 northwestern province of Idlib.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that a total of 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.