More than 600 civilians evacuated from Homs

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent yesterday evacuated under fire more than 600 civilians from the besieged old city of Homs as the government delegation arrived in Geneva for the second round of UN-brokered peace talks with the opposition.

At the end of the operation, Homs governor Talal al-Barazi said: “The last vehicle has arrived and the total is 611 people.”

He said more aid had been delivered to the insurgent-held area and he and Red Crescent officials had agreed to extend the ceasefire for three days.

Syrian state television reported that five evacuees were killed and 20 wounded when mortars hit the assembly point, violating the three-day truce imposed to permit women, children and elderly men to leave and enable Red Crescent and UN teams to deliver food and medical supplies to the 2,500 civilians trapped in the insurgent-held old city.

Convoy attacked
Red Crescent operations chief Khaled Erksoussi said 83 had been evacuated on Friday after the ceasefire went into effect. However, it was broken on Saturday when the convoy carrying supplies was fired upon, wounding a driver and damaging two vehicles. Nevertheless, the UN was able to deliver 250 food parcels and 190 hygiene kits.

Each side blames the other for violating the truce.

UN relief co-ordinator Valerie Amos said the events served "as a stark reminder of the dangers faced by civilians and aid workers every day across Syria. I continue to call on those engaged in this brutal conflict to respect the humanitarian pause, ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate the safe delivery of aid."

Proposed as a confidence-building measure, the Homs ceasefire was always a precarious proposition because it involves not only government forces but also a mix of militias that oppose the Geneva talks.

While the focus has been on Homs, aid deliveries were also temporarily halted to the Yarmouk suburb of Damascus after firing erupted as a convoy entered the area. Since January 18th, more than 6,000 ration parcels had been delivered to 18,000 Palestinian residents while several hundred civilians had been evacuated.

Meanwhile, opposition activists report that government helicopters have dropped improvised barrel bombs on insurgent-controlled districts of Aleppo, killing 17 people, in a week-long campaign to drive opposition fighters from the city.

In Geneva, the head of the Syrian government delegation, foreign minister Walid Muallem, met UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to prepare for today's meetings with the expatriate opposition National Coalition.

Creating consensus
Mr Brahimi has been pressing for food deliveries and prisoner releases with the aim of creating consensus ahead of discussions on the vexing issue of Syria's governance.

While both sides have agreed to base negotiations on the June 2012 Geneva declaration on Syria, the government insists priority should be given to ending the conflict and restoring security. The coalition team, however, calls for attention to focus on the creation of a provisional authority that would assume full executive authority, thereby removing from power Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The government has rejected this proposition.