“We are not leaving. We will stay a thorn in the regime’s throat. God gives, and God takes.”
month when Syrian President Bashar Assad launched an assault, hoping to score another victory like the fall of rebel-held east Aleppo in December.
The rebel Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham and fighters with the Al Nusra Front, formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, defend Al-Waer.
While cease-fire talks among rebels, Assad and Russian diplomats in Geneva are ongoing, about 55 civilians have died and more than 200 have been wounded in the neighborhood during the assault, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that documents abuses in the country.
According to UNICEF, as of January, there were 15 rebel holdouts — enclaves of people living in besieged areas. Mahmoud lives in one of those 15.
Mahmoud’s youngest child escaped harm in the February airstrike that killed his 13-year-old. His wife and other son were hurt.
“We needed a big wasta to let them out,” he said. Wasta is an Arabic term meaning an inside connection. A friend spirited them through government lines to a hospital. They were released three days ago and live in a regime-controlled part of Homs.
Mahmoud vows to defy Assad until death. “We are not leaving,” he said. “We will stay a thorn in the regime’s throat. God gives, and God takes.”
United Nations humanitarian aid has kept residents alive for more than three years. The regime blocked the last U.N. convoy from entering Al-Waer late last month, threatening 75,000 people with starvation. Similar blockades have gone up in other rebel-held pockets around Homs.
Mohammad al-Hosami, a former Red Crescent activist, said rebels and the regime signed a 10day cease-fire Monday. The two sides have begun negotiations on evacuating the neighborhood.
Al-Hosami said he expects most to evacuate because conditions are becoming unbearable.
“Al-Waer was the last holdout for rebels in Homs,” he said. “If its residents leave, it’s the end for the revolution in the city.”