Rebels start evacuation from Syria’s Homs

HOMS — An operation to evacuate fighters and civilians from rebel-held areas of the flashpoint Syrian city of Homs started on Wednesday, a rebel negotiator and the provincial governor said.

“Three buses have left, carrying 120 people in total, a mixture of wounded and non-wounded civilians and fighters,” negotiator Abul Hareth Al Khalidi told AFP via the Internet.

Homs Governor Talal Al Barazi, quoted by state news agency SANA, also said the operation to evacuate an estimated 2,000 people was under way.

“Homs governor tells SANA correspondent that the first batch of fighters from the old city of Homs has left,” it reported in a breaking news alert.

Barazi earlier told SANA that government forces would sweep the rebel areas for mines and explosives after the evacuation was completed.

The evacuees from rebel-held parts of the city are being granted safe passage to the north of the province and, according to a copy of a deal seen by AFP, fighters will be allowed to keep light weapons.

The deal between the regime and rebels was reached as part of an exchange for a number of hostages being held by opposition fighters in the northern city of Aleppo.

And under the agreement, fighters will also allow aid into two Shiite majority towns in the same province, Nubol and Zahraa, under rebel siege.

It was not immediately clear whether aid had begun entering the towns, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said roads into the two communities had been prepared for deliveries to begin.

Once the Homs operation is complete, the evacuated areas are to be turned over to the government.

The regime will then have control of all but one major area of Homs, once dubbed the “capital of the revolution”.

Waer district is to remain under rebel control for now, but negotiations are under way for a similar deal to that being implemented in the old city.

The old city and surrounding rebel-held areas have been under a tight Syrian army siege for nearly two years.

Earlier this year, around 1,400 people were evacuated from the districts under a UN-Red Crescent operation.

But a group of fighters and civilians, including those with injuries unable to reach evacuation points, stayed behind.

They have faced increasingly tough conditions, with little food or medicine.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict since the start of an armed uprising in 2011.