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Evacuations of opposition fighters resume in Syria's Homs

Associated Press
Published | Updated

This photo released on Saturday, April. 1, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows anti-Syrian government fighters, some of them carrying their weapons, heading to a bus as they leave the last rebel-held neighborhood of al-Waer in Homs province, Syria. Syrian state TV says scores of opposition fighters and their families have left the central city of Homs after being evacuated from the last rebel-held neighborhood. (SANA via AP) (The Associated Press)

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows anti-Syrian government fighters, heading to a bus as they leave the last rebel-held neighborhood of al-Waer in Homs province, Syria, at dawn on Saturday, April. 1, 2017. Syrian state TV says scores of opposition fighters and their families have left the central city of Homs after being evacuated from the last rebel-held neighborhood. (SANA via AP) (The Associated Press)

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows anti-Syrian government fighters, some of them carrying their weapons, heading to a bus as they leave the last rebel-held neighborhood of al-Waer in Homs province, Syria, at dawn on Saturday, April. 1, 2017. Syrian state TV says scores of opposition fighters and their families have left the central city of Homs after being evacuated from the last rebel-held neighborhood. (SANA via AP) (The Associated Press)

Syrian state TV says scores of opposition fighters and their families have left the central city of Homs after being evacuated from the last rebel-held neighborhood.

The TV says 350 people boarded 22 buses that later moved toward the country's north in the third evacuation from al-Waer district in two weeks.

Unlike the previous two evacuations in which the fighters and their families headed to the town of Jarblous on the border with Turkey, Saturday's evacuees headed toward the rebel-held province of Idlib.

The evacuation is part of an agreement to surrender al-Waer to the government and will last weeks.

Opposition activists have criticized the agreement, saying it aims to displace 12,000 al-Waer residents, including 2,500 fighters. The government has rejected those allegations.