Jumat 07 Feb 2014 23:59 WIB

Syria starts evacuating civilians from Homs

Foto: Reuters/Yazan Homsy

A man walks along a street lined with damaged buildings in the besieged area of Homs February 5, 2014.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, HOMS - Syria evacuated three busloads of civilians from a besieged area of Homs on Friday, the first stage of a planned three-day humanitarian ceasefire in the city which has suffered some of the worst devastation of Syria's three-year conflict. The buses carrying dozens of weary-looking evacuees, accompanied by Syrian Arab Red Crescent officials, arrived at a meeting point outside Homs watched by soldiers and police.

There were differing reports about where the evacuees were headed. Officials said they could choose their destination, but an activist in the Old City of Homs said they were being taken to Al-Waar - a neighborhood on the north-western edge of Homs where many of the city's Sunni population have already fled.

The deal is the first positive result of peace talks which were launched two weeks ago between Syria's warring foes and resume on Monday in Geneva, with little prospect of resolving core grievances behind a war which has killed 130,000 people. Under the Homs deal, women, children and old men are allowed to leave the Old City which has been under siege by President Bashar al-Assad's forces for a year and a half, while humanitarian supplies will be allowed in to those who remain.

The World Food Programme said it had trucks ready to take a month's supply of food on Saturday to the estimated 2,500 hungry and malnourished people who have been trapped for months in the rebel-held heart of the city.

Syrian authorities and aid groups said they expected around 200 people to leave the rebel-controlled neighborhoods. By Friday afternoon about 80 people had been evacuated, a UN official told Syrian television. It was the first time the Red Crescent had gained access to the center of Homs since the siege began, the aid agency said.

Russia said a three-day ceasefire had been agreed in the city, which was one of the first areas to erupt in protest against Assad nearly three years ago and where street after street has been destroyed in heavy fighting between Assad's forces and rebels seeking his overthrow.

Syrian authorities had announced that evacuees would be given medical treatment and shelter. They said residents of Old Homs who prefer to remain will be sent humanitarian aid as well.

Syrian opposition members have rejected similar offers to evacuate women and children in the past because of concerns about what might happen to any men, including fighters, who are left behind. Dozens of men were detained and disappeared after a similar deal made last year in Mouadamiya, west of Damascus.