The UN was poised to deliver aid to desperate civilians besieged in rebel-held areas of Syria’s third city Homs yesterday on the second day of a humanitarian truce.
The planned relief convoys come after 83 children, women and elderly people who had survived more than 600 days under tight army blockade were evacuated from the war-battered enclave on Friday.
The Homs evacuation and aid delivery was made possible by a surprise UN-brokered deal between the government and rebel commanders on the ground to observe a three-day “humanitarian pause” in hostilities, which largely held on Friday, UN officials said.
Photo: EPA
The long-sought truce had eluded mediators in last month’s fruitless first round of peace talks between government and opposition delegations in Switzerland that are due to resume in Geneva, Switzerland, tomorrow.
The desperately needed food and medicines have been held up for months in a UN warehouse in a government-controlled area just kilometers away from the trapped civilians awaiting the ceasefire required for their safe delivery.
“Aid convoy is now being loaded and prepared to go to the Old City of Homs,” the Red Crescent tweeted shortly before 11am.
UN officials said the trucks would carry emergency rations for 2,500 people food, medical kits and bedding, as well as cash and other support for the “immediate needs both of those who choose to be evacuated from the area and of those who remain inside.”
Even after Friday’s evacuation of the first batch of civilians who chose to leave, hundreds more women, children and elderly remain among the 2,500 plus residents still inside.
Activists say they have been surviving on little but olives and wild cereals for months.
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