AKIPRESS.COM - Scores of people left the last area held by insurgents in the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday under a local truce between the government and rebels, a monitoring group said, a rare agreement in Syria's nearly five-year conflict.

Three buses carrying people had left the previously besieged district of Waer, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. About 750 people were expected to leave during the day for rebel-held areas in the Hama and Idlib provinces, reports Reuters.

Priority will be given to women, children and the severely wounded, the Observatory's head, Rami Abdulrahman said, citing sources on the ground. But the evacuation will also include scores of fighters and their weapons who reject the truce, he said, among them a small group from al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front.

Homs was a centre of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011. After a two-year government siege, a previous truce allowed insurgents to withdraw from the Old City. Waer and other areas remained in the hands of insurgents..

Some observers had criticised that previous agreement as an enforced surrender. The Observatory said the Waer deal was better for the rebels this time because some fighters will stay in the district and the deal will be implemented in stages.

The United Nations is presiding over implementation of the deal, which was agreed directly between the Syrian sides. Some diplomats say local ceasefires between Syrians may be the most effective way of gradually bringing peace to a country where more than 250,000 people have been killed.

Syria peace talks involving world powers in Vienna in October called for a nationwide ceasefire and a renewal of U.N-brokered talks between the rival Syrian sides. Saudi Arabia is convening an opposition conference this week as part of that process.