Hundreds of Syrian civilians who have been under crippling siege left their homes Wednesday as evacuations resumed after a weekend terrorist bombing killed dozens of others fleeing, nearly 70 of them children.

A large convoy of buses from the terrorist beseiged towns of Foua and Kefraya reached the edge of the militants-held transit point of Rashidin outside second city Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the hard-won evacuation deal was back under way.

“The process has resumed with 3,000 people leaving Foua and Kefraya at dawn and nearly 300 leaving Zabadani and two other rebel-held areas,” the head of the Britain-based activist group, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.

The buses were evacuating residents of Kefraya and al-Foua villages under a deal reached between the Damascus government and foreign-sponsored Takfiri militant groups last month. Residents of Foua and Kefraya were agreed to be transferred to the outskirts of Aleppo City, the coastal province of Latakia or Damascus, while the gunmen and their families would leave for Idlib City.

It is the first stage of the deal. A second phase is due to begin in two months’ time which should see the two government-held towns entirely emptied.

Source: AFP