Evacuations remain underway from Syria's Homs, Yarmouk

By Burak Karacaoglu, Omer Koparan and Esref Musa

Al-BAB/AZAZ (AA) - Evacuations remain underway with more convoys arriving in Syria’s Al-Bab district on Wednesday from the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus and the northern outskirts of Homs province.

Under a deal struck between armed opposition groups and the Assad regime on Apr. 29, Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters and their dependents have been allowed to leave parts of Yarmouk camp.

On Wednesday, a sixth convoy arrived in Al-Bab from the Yarmouk camp, comprised of 39 buses carrying 655 FSA members and their families, according to Anadolu Agency correspondents on the ground.

A further 8,000 people are eventually expected to be evacuated under the terms of the agreement.

Located eight kilometers south of Damascus, the Yarmouk camp is inhabited mostly by Palestinian refugees.

Meanwhile, a second convoy of 59 buses from Homs’s northern outskirts -- carrying 2,803 people -- arrived in Al-Bab the same day.

On May 2, the Syrian regime and opposition groups agreed to a cease-fire on the northern outskirts of Homs.

According to the terms of the deal, Russian and regime forces will move into the region while opposition fighters will be expected to surrender their heavy weapons.

The agreement also provides opposition fighters with a safe exit from other opposition-held parts of northern Syria.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a vicious conflict that began in 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.