DAMASCUS, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Buses have prepared on Tuesday to transfer the second batch of the Islam Army rebels and their families from the district of Douma, the last rebel-held area in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta.
Buses waited at the Wafideen crossing northeast of Damascus for the second batch of the rebels to move out of the adjacent Douma district, a day after more than 1,400 Islam Army militants and their families left toward the rebel-held city of Jarablus in northern Syria near the Turkish border.
The evacuation of the rebels and their families from Douma comes after a deal was reached on Sunday between the Islam Army militants and the Syrian army under the mediation of Russia.
Douma is the last rebel-held area in Eastern Ghouta, after other towns in that sprawling countryside have seen the evacuation of all the rebels and their families toward Idlib Province in northwestern Syria.
The Syrian army launched a massive operation late in February on the rebels in Eastern Ghouta and secured the evacuation of 150,000 civilians who were hosted in government-run shelters until the situation settles in their areas in Eastern Ghouta for their return.
Eastern Ghouta, a 105-square-km agricultural region consisting of several towns and farmlands, used to be occupied by several rebel groups, who posed the last threat to the capital by firing shells into Damascus' government-controlled neighborhoods.
