Hundreds of opposition fighters and civilians prepared to leave Thursday (May 3rd) from three districts south of Syria's capital, AFP reported, under a negotiated withdrawal to secure the last opposition holdouts of Damascus.

The departures come two days after a similar deal was reached to evacuate Tahrir al-Sham fighters from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Thursday that empty buses were entering the towns of Babila, Yalda and Beit Sahm, to be filled up with opposition fighters and civilians who would head to opposition-held parts of northern Syria.

Around 5,000 extremists and their families are expected to leave, fulfilling an agreement reached on Sunday between the Syrian government and opposition groups, the agency said.

The deal was reached after "negotiations between figures from the three towns on one side, and Russia and the regime on the other", according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Those opposition fighters who wanted to leave for the north could do so, and those who wanted to stay would abandon their weapons and have their status with the Syrian state regularised.

Meanwhile, Tahrir al-Sham said late Wednesday that 141 of its fighters who were evacuated from Yarmouk have reached northern Syria.

In exchange, it said, 18 wounded people and their relatives were allowed to leave a pair of regime-controlled villages besieged by hardline opposition fighters in north-west Syria.

That deal is still expected to see some 5,000 people leave the two villages, Fuaa and Kafraya, according to SANA.