BEIRUT: Renewed fighting broke a cease-fire in the embattled central Syrian city of Homs and halted a plan to evacuate civilians and bring supplies into rebel-held areas under siege, an official and activists said Saturday. The official said the fighting included a mortar that landed near UN personnel. An activist said combat began when government forces fired 11 rockets toward the rebel-held Hamidiyeh quarter.
Syrian forces loyal President Bashar Assad have prevented the entry of food and medical aid into rebel-held parts of the city for over a year, badly affecting hundreds of civilians holed up in the areas. An agreement had called for a three-day truce to allow the evacuation of some civilians and the entry of food shipments.
On Friday, 83 children, women and elderly people on wheelchairs were evacuated from Homs, the UN said. “UN teams have pre-positioned food, medical and other basic supplies for immediate delivery as soon as the first group of civilians are out and we hope to send this aid on Saturday morning,” said the UN humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Yacoub El Hillo. On Saturday, a coalition of exiled Syrian activists said they feared the agreement would be used as a “prelude to the regime destroying the city.”
“It has used similar deals to buy time to strengthen its positions on the ground and to kill more civilians,” said the Syrian Coalition in a statement issued Saturday. Also Saturday, military aircraft dropped barrels bombs on rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 20. The bombings are part of a weeks-long campaign by Assad’s forces to wrest control of the city, parts of which were seized by rebels in mid-2012.
Other bombs fell on the Kalaseh district, the Aleppo Media Center reported. The activist collective, the Local Coordination Committees, also reported the bombings. Wissam said four people were killed in Masaken Hanano and another 11 were killed in Haidariyeh. Video footage of one incident started with a thundering explosion followed by a column of smoke billowing to the sky. Men rushed about a damaged building, pulling out smashed bodies.
They carried them on makeshift stretchers of cardboard and blankets, laying the dead on a sidewalk. One man placed a severed limb next to a sprawled body. Men rushed to an ambulance carrying a white sheet laden with body parts; they said they had collected four bodies.
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