Tens of thousands head home after south Syria cease-fire deal

Tens of thousands have returned to their homes in southern Syria since a cease-fire deal between regime ally Russia and rebels to end more than two weeks of deadly bombardment, a monitor said Sunday.

The deal was largely holding despite air strikes on two areas that killed four civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, as rebel evacuations under the deal were postponed.

President’s Bashar al-Assad regime is determined to retake control of the key southern province of Daraa bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, seven years after protests there sparked Syria’s civil war.

Since June 19, a deadly regime bombardment campaign on the province had caused more than 320,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations, many to the sealed border with Jordan.

On Friday, rebels and the regime announced a ceasefire deal, providing for opposition fighters to hand over their heavy weapons and paving the way for a regime takeover of the province.

More than 60,000 people have since hit the road from the Jordanian frontier, heading back to their homes in the east or west of the province, the Britain-based Observatory said.

On Sunday, the returns were continuing, the Observatory said, even as regime warplanes pounded two areas of the province.

Three civilians were killed in air strikes on Um al-Mayazeen, just five kilometers (three miles) north of the Jordanian border, said the Britain-based monitor.

“Regime forces launched an assault on the village,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said, two days after they retook control of the key border crossing of Nassib to its south.

Earlier, rebel fire on a regime convoy travelling near Um al-Mayazeen on the highway from the border had killed several soldiers, Abdel Rahman said, without providing a toll.

A regime air strike on the rebel-held half of the provincial capital of Daraa also killed one civilian, he said.

Under the cease-fire deal, regime forces were to deploy along the frontier with Jordan, while rebels were to hand over their heavy weapons.