Hundreds evacuated from Homs ahead of talks
DAMASCUS—Aid teams evacuated hundreds of exhausted civilians from besieged Homs City on Sunday, as Syria’s regime and rebels again accused each other of violating a truce ahead of new peace talks.
The evacuation of around 600 of the 3,000 trapped people came as representatives from both sides converged on Geneva.
Sunday’s evacuation was the second in three days after a UNbrokered truce for besieged districts of Syria’s third city began on Friday.
Five men were killed when one besieged district was hit by mortar fire during Sunday’s evacuation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
They were the latest deaths in a nearly three-year conflict that has killed 136,000 people and displaced millions.
The Observatory and the Syrian Red Crescent said some 600 people had been evacuated from the Old City of Homs on Sunday.
The Red Crescent said on Facebook “around 600 people evacuated today, registration is still ongoing. We managed to get 60 food parcels and 1500 kilograms of flour inside old city.”
The Observatory said 611 were brought out—“210 women, 180 children, 91 men over 55 years old and 130 young men who surrendered to Syrian authorities under UN supervision,” adding the men “will be released soon.” Television footage showed women, children and elderly men getting off the evacuation buses.
Visibly exhausted
They appeared visibly exhausted and frail, in a video broadcast by Beirut-based channel Al-Mayadeen.
The civilians were aided by UN staff and Syrian Red Crescent volunteers amid a strong Syrian Army presence.
“We had nothing. All the children were sick, we even had nothing to drink,” said one exhausted woman, her three children standing round her.
State television said the operation took place under fire from “armed terrorist groups”— regime terminology for rebels.
But the Britain-based Observatory echoed claims by activists that at least five people were killed in shelling that targeted the besieged district of Qarabis.
Activists accused proregime militiamen in neighborhoods bordering the besieged districts, who opposed the truce, of firing the mortar rounds.
Shelling also targeted an aid convoy on Saturday in an attack that killed five residents and wounded 20, the Observatory said.
UN Resident Coordinator Yaacub El Hillo denounced the latest attack, saying the “ceasefire was violated in a hateful way,” without apportioning blame.
Sunday’s evacuation was the second after 83 people were brought out on Friday’s first day of the truce.
‘A glimmer of hope’
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres on Sunday paid tribute to the Red Crescent and UN volunteers.
“This shows that even in the darkest of nights it is possible to offer a glimmer of hope to people in desperate need of assistance,” he said.
Iran, a key ally of President Bashar Assad’s regime, hailed the evacuation operation, the foreign ministry saying it could improve the humanitarian situation.
Activists said on Sunday the truce has been extended by 72 hours and that more people would be evacuated on Monday.
Homs, much of which has been reduced to rubble, was dubbed “the capital of the revolution” by activists before a 2012 offensive by regime forces recaptured much of the city.